About
Hi there! My name is Lucy. I’m a microbiome researcher, educator, and passionate scholar of integrative, evidence-based gut health.
If you’re looking for an evidence-based, integrative approach to gut or overall health, you’re in the right place.
My Story
I earned my bachelor’s degree in biology from Kalamazoo College in 2015, with a concentration in neuroscience and a minor in psychology.
After struggling with chronic eczema for most of my life, I finally began to examine the role that diet and gut health might be playing in my skin condition in 2013. By gradually identifying foods that were causing inflammation, treating underlying gut pathologies, and nourishing my body with real food, I was able to reverse my eczema and achieve clear skin for the first time in my adult life.
As a two-sport college athlete, I was also delighted by the increased energy, faster workout recovery, and improved mental clarity. Six months after overhauling my diet and focusing on gut health, I had the best season of my collegiate soccer goalkeeping career, posting the second-best goals against average in Kalamazoo College women’s soccer history and earning Academic All-American status.
I quickly became a true believer in the power of a root-cause approach to treating chronic disease. I spent hours poring through online articles, basic science papers, medical journals, and textbooks, and soon decided I wanted to study the role of gut health in medicine and change the way people view chronic disease. In 2015, I was accepted to an MD/PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
At UIUC, my graduate research focused on the effects of diet and exercise on the gut microbiome in states of health and disease. During my graduate training, I was involved in two seminal studies on exercise and the gut microbiome: the first longitudinal study of aerobic exercise training on the human gut microbiome and the first “exercised” microbiota transplant into germ-free mice.
I authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and was named an Emerging Leader in Nutritional Sciences by the American Society for Nutrition in 2017. I also received the Young Scientist Award at the International Scientific Conference on Probiotics, Prebiotics, Gut Microbiota, and Health in 2019.
In 2017, I launched this blog! What started as a way for me to engage more with the scientific literature and make sense of disparate research on short-chain fatty acids quickly grew to reach a substantial audience. I began writing on a wide variety of topics related to gut and skin health, and by popular request, began consulting one-on-one with individuals looking to improve their health.
After completing my PhD in Nutritional Sciences in 2019, I took a gap year to travel with my husband Steven and continued to perform research, write, and consult remotely. In early 2020, I decided to forgo continuing to medical school in favor of a career in independent research, one-on-one health consulting, and science communication. Today, I continue to translate evidence-based information on gut health, the microbiome, and nutrition science into actionable insights so that you can reverse chronic disease, optimize your health, and live better.
I am so grateful to have you here! I hope that you find the resources here helpful to you.
Where to go from here:
- Sign up for my email newsletter
- Read more about my one-on-one health consultations
- Learn more about gut health
- Read more about my scholarly research
- Support my work on substack!
About
Hi there! My name is Lucy. I’m a microbiome researcher, educator, and passionate scholar of integrative, evidence-based gut health.
If you’re looking for an evidence-based, integrative approach to gut or overall health, you’re in the right place.
My Story
I earned my bachelor’s degree in biology from Kalamazoo College in 2015, with a concentration in neuroscience and a minor in psychology.
After struggling with chronic eczema for most of my life, I finally began to examine the role that diet and gut health might be playing in my skin condition in 2013. By gradually identifying foods that were causing inflammation, treating underlying gut pathologies, and nourishing my body with real food, I was able to reverse my eczema and achieve clear skin for the first time in my adult life.
As a two-sport college athlete, I was also delighted by the increased energy, faster workout recovery, and improved mental clarity. Six months after overhauling my diet and focusing on gut health, I had the best season of my collegiate soccer goalkeeping career, posting the second-best goals against average in Kalamazoo College women’s soccer history and earning Academic All-American status.
I quickly became a true believer in the power of a root-cause approach to treating chronic disease. I spent hours poring through online articles, basic science papers, medical journals, and textbooks, and soon decided I wanted to study the role of gut health in medicine and change the way people view chronic disease. In 2015, I was accepted to an MD/PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
At UIUC, my graduate research focused on the effects of diet and exercise on the gut microbiome in states of health and disease. During my graduate training, I was involved in two seminal studies on exercise and the gut microbiome: the first longitudinal study of aerobic exercise training on the human gut microbiome and the first “exercised” microbiota transplant into germ-free mice.
I authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and was named an Emerging Leader in Nutritional Sciences by the American Society for Nutrition in 2017. I also received the Young Scientist Award at the International Scientific Conference on Probiotics, Prebiotics, Gut Microbiota, and Health in 2019.
In 2017, I launched this blog! What started as a way for me to engage more with the scientific literature and make sense of disparate research on short-chain fatty acids quickly grew to reach a substantial audience. I began writing on a wide variety of topics related to gut and skin health, and by popular request, began consulting one-on-one with individuals looking to improve their health.
After completing my PhD in Nutritional Sciences in 2019, I took a gap year to travel with my husband Steven and continued to perform research, write, and consult remotely. In early 2020, I decided to forgo continuing to medical school in favor of a career in independent research, one-on-one health consulting, and science communication. Today, I continue to translate evidence-based information on gut health, the microbiome, and nutrition science into actionable insights so that you can reverse chronic disease, optimize your health, and live better.
I am so grateful to have you here! I hope that you find the resources here helpful to you.
Where to go from here:
- Sign up for my email newsletter
- Read more about my one-on-one health consultations
- Learn more about gut health
- Read more about my scholarly research
- Support my work on substack!