Diane F BirtDiane F. Birt is Distinguished Professor in Food Science and Human Nutrition at Iowa State University. She has B.S. degrees in Home Economics and Chemistry from Whittier College (1971) and a Ph.D. in Nutrition from Purdue University (1975). Her experise is in diet and cancer prevention and plant components and health promotion. She was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (1976-1997) before coming to Chair the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition (1997-2004). Dietary prevention of cancer has been a long-standing interest in the Birt laboratory. More recent research has focused on the prevention of colon cancer by slowly digested maize starches using cell culture and animal models that reflect particular genetic changes that are important in human colon cancer development. She was on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Toxicology Program (US Department of Health) and the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2015 Dr. Birt was inducted as a Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition and in 2016 she was inducted as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Read More Read Less