Erica C Jansen

Dr. Erica C Jansen serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and holds a secondary appointment as Research Assistant Professor in Neurology. Her work bridges nutritional epidemiology and sleep science, focusing on lifespan health impacts with specialized attention to adolescent and women's health outcomes.

Her educational foundation includes:

• PhD in Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health (2016)
• MPH in Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health (2014)
• BS in Biology, Hope College (2012)

Dr. Jansen's research program centers on bidirectional sleep-nutrition interactions and their cardiometabolic consequences. Key pillars include:

• Early-life nutritional environments and puberty timing
• Objective sleep metrics (duration, timing, quality) and cardiometabolic risk
• Epigenetic mechanisms in sleep-diet-health pathways
• Toxicant exposures through dietary sources
• Life-stage specific analyses (adolescence, pregnancy, midlife)

She primarily leverages the ELEMENT cohort—a 25+ year Mexican birth cohort—and complementary datasets like NHANES and BioCycle.

Analysis of her 2021-2025 publications reveals consistent methodological approaches:

• Integration of actigraphy for objective sleep measurement
• Dietary pattern analysis over single-nutrient approaches
• Epigenome-wide assessments of circadian genes
• Focus on health disparities through socioeconomic and environmental lenses
• Strong emphasis on Mexican and US minority populations

Her work increasingly incorporates machine learning for sleep data analysis and examines policy-relevant questions like food expenditure patterns.

Current funding includes:

• NHLBI K01 grant (K01HL151673) examining sleep-cardiometabolic links in adolescents
• Gilmore Grant and MNORC Pilot funding for circadian gene methylation studies in pregnancy and midlife

Dr. Jansen actively mentors through:

• NUTR703: Guiding MS students in thesis development and scientific communication
• PUBHLTH417: Teaching undergraduates to investigate sleep-nutrition interplay through hands-on research

Her collaborative network spans Michigan Medicine, environmental health scientists, and international cohorts studying developmental origins of health.

Her research team operates within the ELEMENT study infrastructure and partners with clinical departments to translate findings into public health interventions targeting sleep hygiene and dietary patterns for cardiometabolic risk reduction.