Biography

Gabriela Buccini is a UNLV School of Public Health professor who researches maternal and child health and nutrition, including breastfeeding and infant feeding, food insecurity, and early childhood development inequities. She is certified as a lactation consultant (IBCLC) by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners.

An epidemiologist and speech pathologist by training, Buccini's work focuses on helping new mothers overcome challenges. She has worked in multiple countries to understand different breastfeeding environments, learn how culture can affect policymaking processes, and examine how maternal/child health nutrition education and counseling programs can be better implemented and sustainable over time.

Buccini's research has explored topics including the relationship between pacifiers and exclusive breastfeeding, the influence of maternity leave on breastfeeding, ultra-processed food consumption among infants, childhood obesity, and pathways for scaling up evidence-based early childhood and nutrition programs in low-income settings and vulnerable populations. Her findings have been published in Annals of the New York Academy of Science, International Breastfeeding Journal, Maternal and Child Nutrition, and Journal of Poverty.