Liliana  Aguayo

Liliana is a community health researcher investigating the early life origins of racial and ethnic disparities in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Her research uses an intersectionality framework to investigate overlapping factors associated with disparities in obesity and cardiovascular health among racial/ethnically diverse children and adolescents.

She completed the Master of Public Health/Doctor of Philosophy in Community Health (MPH/ PhD) dual degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a fellow of the USDA Illinois Transdisciplinary Obesity Prevention Program (I-TOPP). Upon completion of her graduate training, she completed postdoctoral training in cardiovascular epidemiology as a fellow of the American Heart Association (AHA) at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital. She uses qualitative and quantitative methods and has experience in data collection with pediatric and adult samples, community health, and bilingual survey research development.

Liliana has been awarded a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from NIDDK and is currently adding her expertise to the project "Dynamics and Health Consequences of Obesity between Infancy and Young Adulthood in the United States".