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Sheila Fleischhacker, PhD, JD, RDN (she/her/hers)

Senior Technical Advisor for Nutrition Security
United States Department of Agriculture
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, United States

Sheila Fleischhacker, PhD, JD, RDN is the Senior Technical Advisor for Nutrition Security, a joint detail between the Food and Nutrition Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture at the United States Department of Agriculture. In this role over the last three years, she helps lead a whole-of-department approach to advancing food and nutrition security and implement USDA’s actions put forth in the National Strategy released as part of the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Prior to returning to federal service, as founder and president of Fly Health, LLC, she provided public health law research consulting services; one example of her work is a report on the rationale and options to strengthen national nutrition research, which quickly secured support of 70+ organizations. She also co-founded and co-chaired a Healthy Eating Research (HER) and CDC-supported Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) award winning ad hoc COVID-19 working group that grew to 2,000+ members, collaborated with more than 40 organizations, and published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles. Her prior federal service includes serving as the Senior Advisor of Nutrition and Food Safety at USDA Office of the Chief Scientist (2017-2018), on detail from the National Institutes of Health (2012-2018), where she helped put forth the first-of-its kind National Nutrition Research Roadmap and chaired a USDA Inter-Departmental Nutrition Workshop Series. Prior to that, she was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Principal Investigator for the American Indian Healthy Eating Project and its subsequent capacity building project known as Healthy Native North Carolinians. Dr. Fleischhacker received her Bachelor’s degree in 2000 and J.D. in 2007, with a Certificate in Health Law from Loyola University Chicago and Ph.D. in Integrative Biosciences/Nutritional Sciences from The Pennsylvania State University in 2004. Her post-doctoral training focused on urban and regional planning and public health nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) internship through a distance program at Iowa State University in 2018. She was admitted into the Illinois Bar in November 2007, and she is a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior (elected Treasurer (2012-2015) and a Director-at-large (2019-2021) and was awarded the 2009 Rising Star Award, the 2018 Mid-Career Award, and the 2021 Health Promotion Policy Group Impact Award), the American Society for Nutrition (elected Director-at-large – Food and Nutrition Policy (2020-2021)), and the Academy of Food Law Professors. She was an appointed member (2013-2020) and Chair (2019) of the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families and served on the leadership team of Arlington’s Destination 2027 (2018-2020), which helped develop and implement the county’s first equity resolution and secure the hiring of the first Chief Racial and Equity Officer. Since 2015, Sheila has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University where she has taught nutrition law and policy course for nine terms and co-teaches the first 1,000 days of life for four terms thus far.

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