Marlene Schwartz

Marlene B. Schwartz, PhD is a Professor at the University of Connecticut and Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health. Her work focuses on improving school nutrition environments, strengthening wellness policies through tools like the WellSAT WSCC, and enhancing the nutritional quality of charitable food systems. She leads initiatives to reduce ultra-processed foods in schools and improve food pantry inventories using metrics like WellSCAN. Her research addresses food insecurity, youth marketing of unhealthy foods, and the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model implementation.

Education: Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.S. in Psychology from Yale University (1996/1993/1992); B.A. from Haverford College (1988). She currently advises doctoral students and oversees grants focused on school nutrition programs, summer meal access, and charitable food system improvements. Recent media engagements include commentary on healthy beverage policies, food pantry innovations, and school meal equity.

Key projects include the Connecticut WSCC Partnership, WellSCAN food pantry assessments, and evaluations of USDA programs. Her work bridges research with actionable policy solutions to address obesity, food insecurity, and weight bias.