Eun Kyung Lee, a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Swetland Center will be participating in the Translational Fellows Program (TFP) managed by the Office of Translation and Innovation and the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) Office at ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ (ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½) School of Medicine for 2020-2021. Along with a cohort of peer awardees across the ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ School of Medicine, this award will provide training and education on entrepreneurship activities and venture creation to enhance Farmers’ Market (FM) tracks software. FM Tracks is an iOS platform and website currently used by 500+ FMs and Farmers’ Networks (FNs) across the U.S. to support nutrition incentive program tracking and evaluation. The software was developed by Darcy Freedman, PhD, MPH, and licensed by ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ through a non-exclusive license agreement starting in 2015.
Trained as an environmental health scientist, Eun Kyung’s interests in entrepreneurship through this program lies in maximizing quantitative skills to enhance data dissemination for environmental health promotion. While her previous experience includes data science and population-based environmental health research, this Fellowship will provide a new avenue for translating these skills to better support evidence-based practice in the real world. In this specific application, she will enhance these skills by applying an entrepreneurial approach to better support FMs and FNs across the U.S. that are operating nutrition incentive programs to promote a healthy diet through affordable access to fruits and vegetables for low-income consumers.
The goal of the proposed project is to discover opportunities to enhance FM Tracks software through features focused on data translation and dissemination. These insights will increase commercialization opportunities by offering new products within FM Tracks. Eun Kyung is thrilled and grateful for the opportunity to be working with FM Tracks data. Her greatest hopes from this program are to contribute in improving access to more nutritious foods, enhancing public health, and supporting farmers and FM owners.