Staff

Assistant Research Professor

Marcia Monaco Siegel, PhD

Marcia Monaco Siegel received her B.S. in Dietetics at the Pontificia Catholic University of Campinas in Brazil, her M.S. in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Rhode Island and her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois in 1994. Her scientific training was followed with a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratories of Drs. Matt Wheeler and Sharon Donovan at UI, where she worked on the development of an IGF-I transgenic line of swine. Marcia is involved in several projects that focus on the understanding of the role of nutrition, particularly components of breast milk, in the development of the gastrointestinal tract, immunity and microbiota. She has over 25 years of experience in using the piglet as a model for biomedical research and often collaborates with other investigators in the adaptation of the piglet model for their research. She also oversees undergraduate research experience in the Donovan Lab. In the spring of 2011, Marcia received the Professional Staff Award for Excellence from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. In the spring of 2020, Marcia received the Outstanding Advisor, Mentor, & Educator from the Department of Food Sciences& Human Nutrition.

Visiting Research Specialist in Nutrition

Mei Wang, PhD

Mei Wang has been working at the Donovan Lab as a postdoc research associate since 2007. Her current research interests focus on the impact of early nutrition (breast-milk, formula, formula with prebiotics, and breast-milk in combination with formula) on the colonization of intestinal microbiota and immune function using a neonate pig model. Mei obtained her Ph.D. at the Department of Food Technology, Engineering and Nutrition, Lund University, Sweden. During that time, her research aimed at the characterization of intestinal microbiota in healthy and diseased subjects by DNA-based methods. Mei’s research interests are gut microbiota, infant formula, and pre- and probiotics.