Valerie Tarasuk, PhD
Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Student Affairs
Department of Nutritional Sciences
Temerty Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto

Valerie Tarasuk is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her research extends to Canadian food policy and population-level dietary assessment, but her most significant impact has been in the area of household food insecurity. She has worked to elucidate the scope, nature, and nutrition and health implications of this problem in Canada, assess the effectiveness of community responses, and determine how public policies impact food insecurity prevalence and severity. In 2011, Val led the establishment of PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program launched to identify effective policy approaches to reduce household food insecurity in Canada and mobilize knowledge to inform action.