Sheila Fleischhacker, PhD, JD, RDN is a National Science Liaison for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and serves as the co-lead for the NIFA Nutrition Security Team. She is currently serving on a joint detail for her third year as a Senior Technical Advisor on Nutrition Security at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Prior to returning to federal service, as founder and president of Fly Health, LLC, she provided public health law research consulting services; one example of her work is a report on the rationale and options to strengthen national nutrition research, which has secured support of 70+ organizations. She also co-founded and co-chaired a Healthy Eating Research (HER) and CDC-supported Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) ad hoc COVID-19 working group that has grown to 700+ members, collaborates with more than 40 organizations, and has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles. Previously, she was the senior advisor of nutrition and food safety at USDA Office of the Chief Scientist (2017-2018), on detail from the National Institutes of Health (2012-2018). During her federal service, she helped put forth the first-of-its kind National Nutrition Research Roadmap and chaired a USDA Inter-Departmental Nutrition Workshop Series. Prior to that, she was an adjunct assistant professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the principal investigator for the American Indian Healthy Eating Project and its subsequent capacity building project known as Healthy Native North Carolinians. Dr. Fleischhacker received her bachelor’s degree in 2000 and J.D. in 2007, with a Certificate in Health Law from Loyola University Chicago and Ph.D. in Integrative Biosciences/Nutritional Sciences from The Pennsylvania State University in 2004. Her post-doctoral training focused on urban and regional planning and public health nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed her Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) internship through a distance program at Iowa State University in 2018. She was admitted into the Illinois Bar in November 2007, and she is a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior (elected Treasurer (2012-2015) and a Director-at-large (2019-2021) and was awarded the 2009 Rising Star Award, the 2018 Mid-Career Award, and the 2021 Health Promotion Policy Group Impact Award), the American Society for Nutrition (elected Director-at-large – Food and Nutrition Policy (2020-2021)), and the Academy of Food Law Professors. She was an appointed member (2013-2020) and Chair (2019) of the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families and served on the leadership team of Arlington’s Destination 2027 (2018-2020), which helped develop and implement the county’s first equity resolution and secure the hiring of the first Chief Racial and Equity Officer. Sheila is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University where she teaches a first-of-its-kind nutrition law and policy course and co-taught for three terms a unique course on the first 1,000 days of life.