Organizer: Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University
Type/Location: In Person / Ithaca, NY
Description:
Join the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University for a talk by Lydia O’Meara, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Dr. O’Meara will explore how seasonal and environmental fluctuations in Timor-Leste shape access to nutrient-rich aquatic foods, while also providing insights into changes in marine biodiversity.
Abstract:
Across the Indo-Pacific Coral Triangle, one of the world’s most biodiverse yet threatened regions, climate change and human pressures are reshaping both marine ecosystems and the coastal communities that rely on them for livelihoods and nutrition. Yet, integrated and timely data on ocean and human health remain scarce, especially in remote, low-resource settings. This lecture presents the early stages of a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability study developing a low-cost mobile phone–based tool to track aquatic food consumption as an integrated monitoring indicator of marine biodiversity and food security at high frequency amidst a changing climate in Timor-Leste.
Using Interactive Voice Response technology on basic mobile phones, the project will pilot high-frequency participant-recorded dietary monitoring with women in small-scale fishing households, a nutritionally vulnerable and sentinel population for tracking community food security. By recording the diversity of aquatic foods eaten throughout the year, the study will explore how seasonal and environmental fluctuations shape access to nutrient-rich aquatic foods, whilst also providing insights into changes in marine biodiversity. This lecture will focus on the co-design, feasibility, and refinement of innovative integrated mobile phone monitoring tools suited to contexts where conventional surveys are constrained by severe weather, low literacy, and limited infrastructure. Timor-Leste serves as a case study for how inclusive, low-cost technologies can sustain nutrition and biodiversity data flows amid climate variability, informing future research and policy at the ocean–human health interface across Southeast Asia.
About the Speaker:
Originally from Australia, Lydia O’Meara is an international nutritionist passionate about sustainable food systems for nutrition. Lydia is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, working in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health. She is also an Emerging Leader Representative for the WHO World Health Summit in the Asia-Pacific. Her three-year Cornell fellowship focuses on developing and validating a novel mobile phone–based tool for high-frequency monitoring of diets among low-literate women in remote, resource-limited settings, with current fieldwork in Timor-Leste. With over seven years’ experience, Lydia has worked with organizations including UN Nutrition, the FAO, and WorldFish on food security and nutrition research across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Her current work centers on aquatic foods for nutrition and the design of sustainable, equitable food systems in the context of climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Her research has been published in high-impact international journals, including the Lancet Planetary Health, Global Food Security, and PNAS. When she’s not working, Lydia enjoys exploring local foods and cultures.
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here.