Biography

Caitlin Caspi, ScD, is a social epidemiologist with a research interest in evaluating policies and interventions addressing the social determinants of health, particularly diet and obesity. She completed her doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Minnesota. She joined the Department of Allied Health Sciences as Associate Professor in 2020, coming from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. She currently serves as the Principal Investigator on two NIH R01 studies addressing food insecurity and diet-related health disparities. The first is a group-randomized study evaluating the impact a behavioral economic intervention (SuperShelf) in food pantries on dietary outcomes of adults experiencing food insecurity. The second is a natural experiment testing the effect of the Minneapolis Minimum Wage Ordinance, which incrementally raises the minimum wage in Minneapolis to $15 an hour, on diet-related measures and obesity. She serves as the Director of Food Insecurity Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.