Faculty of Kinesiology

 Dr. Maryam Kebbe was recently hired for our advertised position in Human Nutrition. We are excited to have Dr. Kebbe join our team in the Faculty of Kinesiology in January 2023. Dr. Kebbe earned her PhD in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry from the University of Alberta, where she focused on nutrition and behaviour change in pediatric obesity management. Dr. Kebbe completed postdoctoral training at the University of Oxford (Oxford, UK) and the Reproductive Endocrinology & Women’s Health Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (Louisiana State University, Louisiana, US).

Growing up, I loved food and kids (nothing changed!) and planned to pursue a career in the health field, specifically in areas related to nutrition and pediatrics. Initially, my interests in nutrition were driven by living in diverse countries (France, Italy, Lebanon, Turkey), where I observed distinct food landscapes and cultures. I quickly learned that food is not always about nutrition, but represents identity, community, status, humanity, history, survival, and much more. With time, I grew more curious of how food and nutrition impact health across the lifespan, and decided to turn my personal passion into a profession.  

I started by exploring several potential career paths in nutrition and pediatrics, from participating as a volunteer in a pediatrics clinical, nutrition program, to teaching nutrition undergraduate-level courses, to conducting bench research (the only type of research I knew at the time). I enjoyed each, but it was intertwining the individual parts – mainly, the patient interaction in clinical settings, seeing the growth in students from teaching, the innovation and discovery from research, and the nutrition lens that was integral to health – that I was most excited about. This realization led me to pursue clinical research and a PhD focused on pediatric obesity management at the University of Alberta.

I thoroughly enjoyed my PhD. However, as an emerging scientist, it is common for interests to evolve. For me, in addition to treating pediatric obesity at the forefront, I became fascinated by the complex and multifaceted mechanisms involved in preventing obesity. These growing interests led me to pursue my postdoctoral fellowships, and have informed my research program at UNB, which will examine the interrelationship between nutrition, breastmilk, and the gut microbiome in the fetal programming of obesity. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone, and to working directly with students across all levels!