Dr. Lavanya Reddivari joined the Purdue Food Science faculty in 2018. Her research focuses on plant food bioactive components and gut bacterial metabolism in health and low-grade inflammation-driven chronic diseases. The goal is to develop food-based strategies to counter diseases such as ulcerativecolitis, Crohn’sdisease and colon cancer. Dr.Reddivari’s lab is specifically interested in understanding sources of variation in the content and composition of anti-inflammatory bioactive compounds in plant foods; how plant bioactive compounds influence the composition of gut microbiota; how gut bacteria influence the bioavailability and bioactivity of bioactives; and how bioactives and their gut bacterial metabolites suppress colonic inflammation, maintain gut barrier integrity and alter the inflammatory potential of gut microbiota. Dr. Reddivari has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications in the area of food and health and received grants from the US Department of Agriculture–National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the interaction of food,  gut bacteria and the host in health and disease.