Saria Lofton
Email Address: slofto4@uic.eduCollege: Nursing Department: Health Systems Science
Title: Assistant Professor
Office: 1046 Phone: 312-355-2125
Participating in the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Awards program: Yes
Research Interest:
I lead community-engaged “Food is Medicine” research focused on improving cardiometabolic health among Black women, with current projects centered in Mile Square Health Center clinics. Our most recent work includes an NIH-funded FIM+DASH research study which will evaluate a tailored Food is Medicine program that feature nutrition, chef driven cooking classes, food delivery and self-management for Black women with hypertension and obesity. I am also launching FIM-BCS, a mostly remote Food is Medicine pilot for Black breast cancer survivors focused on healthy eating, cancer prevention behaviors and will feature a recipe generator for participants.
Undergraduate research opportunities in my lab span patient-facing and non–patient-facing roles. Students can contribute to:
- Clinical/community research: participant outreach and scheduling, survey administration, data quality checks, and intervention support (training provided; professionalism and reliability matter most).
- Recipe database & Excel automation (Food is Medicine Recipe Generator): maintaining a structured recipe spreadsheet, standardizing ingredients, calculating cost per serving, and supporting nutrition scoring (Excel/Google Sheets; attention to detail required).
- Quantitative support: cleaning and analyzing survey and clinical data; creating reproducible analysis workflows (R preferred; Python welcome).
- Manuscript support: conducting structured literature searches and producing annotated literature reviews (brief summaries, key findings, strengths/limitations, and relevance) to support manuscripts and grant writing. Minimum time commitment in hours per week: 5 Qualifications of a Student:
Students should have strong basic writing and computer skills and communicate professionally (email, scheduling). Comfort with Excel/Google Sheets is important (clean data entry, sorting/filtering; formulas are a plus), along with an interest in health promotion/public health and community-engaged research. Students must have or be willing to obtain CITI (Human Subjects/IRB) certification prior to participant-facing work, and should have experience with literature reviews or be willing to be trained to produce an annotated bibliography. Prior research experience (lab, community, clinical, data work, or project-based coursework) is strongly preferred, as is a demonstrated ability to follow instructions, meet deadlines, ask thoughtful questions when stuck, and produce tangible work products (e.g., writing samples, class projects, posters, structured deliverables).
GPA: 3.0 or better or a strong explanation plus evidence of reliability and improvement;Honors College: welcome, not required.
Soft skills required: Dependable, coachable, and resourceful; can take feedback and iterate; comfortable with routine tasks and able to think critically about quality (accuracy, consistency, documentation); and professional judgment and respect for confidentiality (especially for clinical/community work). Brief Summary of what is expected from the student:
Students will support Food is Medicine research through project tasks such as recruitment support, assessment workflows (training provided), data organization/cleaning, and structured literature reviews. Students are expected to be reliable, follow protocols and confidentiality requirements, and complete weekly deliverables. Opportunities to contribute to posters/manuscripts may be available based on performance, timing, and project needs.
Contact researcher via URE Email Webform
Return to Health Systems Science list
Return to Departments list