Professor
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Dr. Taren’s primary research focus has been on maternal and child nutrition. His research projects have focused on how to improve programs that prevent and treat vitamin A deficiency in pregnant women and young children, the impact of dietary patterns on childhood obesity, improving dietary assessment methods, developing supplemental food products, evaluating humanitarian assistnace prgorams and improving food systems. He has supported the evaluation of solar market gardens in Benin to demonstrate their impact on dietary diversity, women’s empowerment and the nutritional status of women and children. Dr. Taren was the principal investigator for the Western Region Public Health Training Center (WRPHTC). The WRPHTC focuses on strengthen the public health workforce by condutcting needs assesments and creating and distributiong online and in-person trainings focused on mental health, nutrition, childhood obesity, food security and substance abuse to more than 40,000 registrants each. His studies and teaching experiences in maternal and child health have been conducted in Latin America, Asia and Africa with funding from numerous organizations including USAID, NIH, CDC, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.