Page 26 - Healthcare Heroes 2025

HealthcareHEROES
A P R O G R A M O F B U S I N E S S W E S T & H E A L T H C A R E N E W S
Linda Koh, right, with (from left) Natacha Costa, Angela
Williams, Dr. Christopher Gardner, and Claire Paul at a
Stanford University summer internship program.
Photo by Shelley Anderson
could expand to work with kids.
“So I worked with that professor and clinician for one year, and
then I got a grant that enabled me to stay on for a second year as
a post-doc working with Dr. Christopher Gardner, who does all the
nutrition research studies within the Stanford Prevention Research
Center.”
At the time, he had a side project called Farm to Table Camp,
a summer camp that brought kids to an organic farm. “Kids from
kindergarten to eighth grade could go and learn how to grow food,
how to harvest it, how to prepare it. I thought, ‘this is amazing. I
wish like every child could have this opportunity.’”
Gardner encouraged Koh to apply for a grant from the Ardmore
Institute of Health in Oklahoma, which has a nutrition education
program called Full Plate. “I was thinking it would be great if we
could take something like this and turn it into like nutrition education
for kids.”
So she did, producing an activity book called Full Plate for Kids,
which explains concepts like fruits, vegetables, fiber, and other parts
of a healthy diet, as well as how food is grown, how to prepare
simple, healthy meals, and more.
Much of her work so far has been based in California, but since
starting work at UMass, Koh has been busy locally. She recently
secured a grant to work with a graduate student on a nutrition
project this fall, and is working on another to have more students
involved in the spring. “So I’m trying to get more people involved
in nutrition and also help to educate the next generation of nurse
scientists.”
The activity book and other efforts aimed at children and their
families can be impactful, she noted.
“A lot of kids have an aversion to vegetables,” she noted. “So we
need to figure out ways to encourage people to eat more vegetables
and whole grains and beans, nuts and seeds. And so if we can do
it from a young age, I think they can reap the benefits of that long-
term.”
She talked about working in a community health center as part of
her dissertation work, and right next to it was a food bank; patients
could come to the health center for their appointments, and then go
next door and get a box of food.
“I noticed that they would keep most of the canned goods, but
all the fresh fruits and vegetables, they would just leave in a pile
next to the trash can when they were leaving. And I wondered why
they were doing that. So I started talking to some of them, and they
would say things like, ‘I don’t know how to prepare it.’ Or ‘My family
doesn’t like it.’ Or ‘I don’t have a refrigerator.’
“So, for my dissertation work, I really focused on teaching adults
how to prepare things in a quick and easy way that takes less than 15
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2025 << 2025 HEALTHCARE HEROES >>
to 20 minutes,” she continued. “We also talked about
eating things in season and how to create a menu plan
where you can make meals on $5 a day, stuff like that.”
Meanwhile, Koh saw from her camp experience the
impact education and exposure could have on young
people over just a few days.
“The first day, we’d have children that say, ‘oh,
I don’t like any vegetables; I’m not eating this. I’ll
help prepare it, but I’m not going to eat it.’ Or they’d
say, ‘I’ve seen that at home; I don’t like it.’ Then, by
Wednesday or Thursday, they’re eating it. On Friday,
we had salad day; we had a huge salad bar with all
the vegetables from the farm, and the parents were
in shock to see their kids piling kale onto their plates,
things like that. So in just that short time frame, I feel
like we made an impact, and that’s something they can
take home to their families, and then it can impact the
whole community.”
Food for Thought
This fall, at the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, Koh
will be teaching a doctoral-level class in community
engagement and community building — essentially, how to work in
partnership with other community members. She’ll also be teaching
undergraduate courses in writing and nursing ethics.
“Dr. Koh is a leader in advancing nursing education that
responds to the needs of diverse communities,” Neuhauser
wrote. “She mentors undergraduate and graduate students in
culturally responsive care, sustainable food systems, and health
equity research. Many of her students come from communities
underrepresented in nursing and go on to serve in local health
centers, schools, and public health departments. By embedding
equity into clinical practice and community engagement, Dr. Koh is
training a new generation of nurses to serve Western Massachusetts
with compassion and cultural humility.”
One of the reasons Koh is excited to be at UMass is this region’s
strong agriculture economy.
“I’ve met quite a few people in soil science and nutrition and at
the School of Agriculture; they’re doing a lot of different things. I’m
hopeful that we can get a teaching kitchen going in the future —
one in the community and also one here on campus, and do more
collaborative projects together.”
Koh’s mentor at Stanford recently received a grant to work with a
nonprofit organization in more than 600 schools across the nation,
going into school cafeterias and helping them get involved with local
farms, improving their scratch cooking, and removing excess sugar.
She’d like to see more efforts like that nationally, but for now, she’s
determined to do what she can in Massachusetts.
“I feel like nutrition is something that everybody can get excited
about because everybody has to eat, and everybody has memories
of their favorite foods, or foods they ate when they were growing
up, or around holidays. So that whole community-engagement piece
together with nutrition, that’s where my interests lie.”
And to see the impact, even if it’s on just one student or one
family at a time … well, she finds that highly rewarding.
“When I worked inpatient, seeing people coming out of surgery
or who had just gotten a diagnosis, they start thinking, ‘did I do
something wrong? Was there anything I could have done to prevent
this?’ And I feel like nutrition is one of the ways that people can feel
like they’re actually directly impacting their health in a small way.
And by starting young, I feel those are lessons they can carry with
them throughout their entire lifetime.
“One of my lifelong goals is to be the bridge between academia
and the general public. A lot of times, people are doing this great
research, but they don’t know how to share that with the general
public, and it can be like 10, 15 years before people find out about
it,” she added. “I just feel like health is so important, and if you don’t
have it, it impacts every other part of your life. And I want to help
people live happy and healthy lives.”
For her commitment to doing just that — and for the broad
impact this work will eventually have — Koh is certainly a
Healthcare Hero. BW
“A lot of
kids have an
aversion to
vegetables.
So we need
to figure
out ways to
encourage
people to
eat more
vegetables and
whole grains
and beans,
nuts and
seeds. And so
if we can do it
from a young
age, I think
they can reap
the benefits
of that long-
term.”