Nile Nair is a final year International PhD candidate from Fiji in the Nutrition Department with a focus in Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology. Trained as a clinical geneticist and surgical researcher, his clinical research has primarily focused on clinical trials of Maternal-Fetal Health and diet, genetics of Inflammatory Bowel disease, microbiome interactions with disease and novel biomarkers of chronic diseases.
His initial work at Harvard involved studying the effects of climate change and the accelerated nutrition transition on indigenous populations in the Pacific region through the lens of dietary colonialism, coral reef health and evolutionary mismatch theory. His current work examines the nexus of climate justice, human nutrition, and planetary health, advocating for more sustainable dietary guidelines with the goal of reducing the greenhouse impact of global food systems. Part of this work also involves addressing the structural violence that the current climate crisis embodies and its effects on minority groups in the US and around the world.