Jennifer Rood
Associate Executive Director
Cores and Resources
Jennifer.Rood@pbrc.edu
Jennifer Rood, Ph.D., DABCC, FAACC, is a clinical pathologist with expertise in both clinical chemistry and stable isotopes. She is a member of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry and The Obesity Society. She is certified by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry and is a fellow in the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Academy. She has been funded by the Department of Defense since 1993 to conduct research on nutrition, metabolism, and human physiology aimed at promoting warfighter resilience and improving warfighter readiness. She is co-director of the Center for Military Performance and Resilience.
Since 2002, Dr. Rood has been the director of the Clinical Chemistry laboratory at Pennington Biomedical, which provides over 300 different highly complex assays, many of which were developed with her lab. The laboratory is accredited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS/CLIA) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP). The lab also participates in the lipid and vitamin D standardization programs and Accuracy-Based Monitoring Programs offered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since 2006, Dr. Rood also has served as the director of the Mass Spectrometry laboratory, which focuses on the use of stable isotopes to measure energy expenditure and total body water. Additionally, stable isotopes are used to explore carbohydrate, amino acid, and fatty acid metabolism.
Much of Dr. Rood’s work has focused on the amount and type of protein in the diet, how diet composition affects metabolism during and after weight loss, the role of protein in overfeeding and in weight gain, and the beneficial effects of calorie restriction.
Areas of Expertise
- Measurement of energy expenditure using doubly labeled water
- Measurement of lipid, protein, and carbohydrate metabolism using stable isotopes
- Evaluation of biochemical markers of gastrointestinal and metabolic health, nutritional status, physiologic function, appetite regulation and cognition health, nutrition, and physiologic status
