Anthony Dempsey is a nutrition: dietetics major from Framingham, Massachusetts. He is involved in managing data for the College Health and Nutrition Assessment Survey (CHANAS), a long-running survey project targeting 18 to 24 year old adults that’s unique to UNH.
COLSA: Tell us about your research in as non-technical language as possible.
Anthony Dempsey: The CHANAS survey project collects data surrounding college students' nutrition, health and well-being. My role within the project is to collect data, input that data and interpret it.
COLSA: What challenge does your research seek to address?
Anthony: CHANAS seeks to guide and address undergraduate students' health and well-being. Through anthropometrics, biochemical data, clinical data, fitness level and lifestyle factors, the survey data allows us to better understand the role of health among college students.
COLSA: Your work elevates research supported by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station. How will it benefit people, communities and/or the natural environment in New Hampshire?
Anthony: The general population of college students benefit greatly from the CHANAS study. Students who participate in CHANAS are able to learn and interpret their own personal health data.
COLSA: What are you learning as a result of you experience?
Anthony: By working under Dr. Morrell and as a research assistant for the CHANAS study, I have learned how to talk to individuals about sensitive information, compile and compute large amounts of data, take blood, read biochemical data, establish how to take clinical data, and much, much more.
COLSA: Who are you working with? (Faculty, grad students, other undergrads)
Anthony: I currently work under Dr. Morrell and Nia Lessard ’25.
COLSA: What should prospective students know about UNH?
Anthony: Prospectives students should know that UNH, and specifically the nutrition program, values their students tremendously. I would not be where I am today without the help from faculty, including Jesse Stabile Morrell, Amy Taetzsch, Gretchen Arnold and others. With their help, I have been able to find and pursue my passion.
COLSA: What do you love most about UNH?
Anthony: What I love most about UNH are the opportunities. I was able to present a research review at the Undergraduate Research Conference as a freshman, studying energy availability in collegiate athletes. As previously stated, I have also been able to be a part of CHANAS, working as a lab technician and computing the data. UNH has helped me mature as a bodybuilder with proper nutrition and exercise, as I've been able to also start a club dedicated to high performing athletes with friends.
The NH Agricultural Experiment Station helps improve New Hampshire's lives, livelihoods and landscapes through research and discoveries that sustain agricultural, food and forested ecosystems and supporting the development of future scientists. The Station research described above is based on work with joint funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under Hatch award number 1026518 and the state of New Hampshire.
Learn more
- Nutrition: Dietetics B.S.
- College Health and Nutrition Assessment Survey
- UNH Undergraduate Research Conference
- New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station
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