Scholar Profile

Monique Pardo-Montez is a 1st year PhD student at the UNC School of Nursing and a Clinical Nurse II at UNC Medical Center. She graduated with her BSN in 2020 and completed a Nurse Residency program at Duke from 2020 – 2021. Working with her mentor since 2018, Dr. Eric Hodges, she examines dyadic communication related to infant/child feeding and childhood obesity prevention efforts in multi-ethnic communities. Ms. Pardo-Montez’s research interests include gaining a better understanding of how the mother-infant-microbiome trad mitigates the development of childhood obesity by the establishment of breastfeeding. Her long-term goal is to understand how the microbiome is implicated in autoimmune disorders and the potential nutritional interventions have in preventing and treating disorders attributed to the microbiome. She is grateful for the experiences she’s having at the Microbiome Core and the funding she has received in her PhD program – namely from the Hillman Scholars program and her Carolina Excellence Award. Ms. Pardo-Montez is originally from Puerto Rico. She has a 10-year-old daughter who has had a profound influence on her research interest in the microbiome. She desires to help others who seek different solutions to treating certain health conditions. In her leisure time, she enjoys meditating, dancing, and playing with GIANT microbes!