Meghan Azad

Dr. Meghan Azad is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba and a Research Scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Developmental Origins of Chronic Disease and co-Directs the new Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC, www.milcresearch.com). Her research program (www.azadlab.ca) is focused on the role of infant nutrition and the microbiome in child growth, development and resilience. Dr. Azad is directing the new International Milk Composition Consortium that will comprehensively profile human milk from women in diverse low- and middle-income settings, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She also co-leads the Manitoba site of the CHILD Cohort Study (www.childstudy.ca), a national pregnancy cohort following 3500 children to understand how early life experiences shape lifelong health to promote or protect against asthma, allergies and obesity. Dr. Azad directs multiple projects related to infant feeding practices, human milk composition and the microbiome in the CHILD cohort and other populations, including preterm neonates receiving donor milk, and Bangladeshi infants at risk of malnutrition. She also leads collaborative projects examining perceptions of breastfeeding on social media, and developing methods to improve societal support for breastfeeding through school-based education programs. Dr. Azad received the 2018 International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML) Ehrlich-Koldovsky Award. She serves on the ISRHML Executive Council, the Breastfeeding Committee of Canada, and the joint US/Canada Human Milk Composition Initiative.