Author: Dr. Margaret Voss

I am a Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Public Health, Food Studies, and Nutrition at Syracuse University and a faculty affiliate in the University’s interdisciplinary program in Neuroscience. I teach courses related to nutritional biochemistry, nutritional genomics, and human metabolism. I maintain an active research program on vertebrate metabolism, energetics, reproductive physiology, and embryonic development. I am specifically interested in the ways in which humans alter their environment and the subsequent repercussions for both human and non-human vertebrate metabolic health. My research philosophy is in keeping with the One Health Initiative, a worldwide strategy for expanding interdisciplinary collaborations and communications in all aspects of health care for humans, animals and the environment. Current projects include 1) an evaluation of how human land use patterns and agricultural activities in the Galapagos influence the physiology of an invasive parasite that targets the nestling stage of endangered Darwin’s finch species, and 2) examining the ways in which light intensity, wavelength, and photoperiod stimulate the vertebrate endocrine system to modify the hormonal regulation of lipolytic and lipogenic metabolic pathways. I collaborate with faculty at Cornell University, SUNY ESF, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, The Charles Darwin Foundation, Penn State, and Franklin & Marshall College on studies on latitudinal variations in avian metabolism (both parental and embryonic), the effects of environmental variation on endocrine control of ovulation, and the effect of changes in dietary metabolites on susceptibility to blood feeding parasites. The unifying concept for my research is the link between environmental influences (e.g., photoperiod, food availability, dietary components and substrate availability) and genotype and phenotype (e.g. changes in the timing of embryonic development and reproductive physiology).