Elena Comelli PhD

Biography

Dr. Elena Comelli is an Associate Professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Kinesiology, Brock University. Dr Comelli graduated at the University of Milano, Italy, and then obtained her PhD from ETH, Zurich, Switzerland studying probiotics for oral health. Afterwards, she did a postdoc in glycomics at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, USA. In 2003, Dr Comelli returned to Switzerland and worked as a project manager at Nestlé Research Centre, Lausanne. In 2007, she joined the University of Toronto; in 2014 she received the Lawson Family Chair in Microbiome Nutrition Research. Dr Comelli teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level and is an Associate Editor for the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism. Her lab investigates the relationship between diet, gut microbiome and the host and nutritional programming of the gut microbiome for long-term health.

About the Award

This award recognizes sustained excellence, mentorship and innovative methods that link undergraduate teaching to experiential research opportunities such as research project courses, summer student research projects or equivalent programs.