Rate My Professor Virginia Gray

Dr. Virginia Gray serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at California State University, Long Beach, with a focus in Nutrition and Dietetics. She holds a Ph.D. in Nutrition and an M.S. in Nutrition with a minor in Sociology from Mississippi State University, as well as a B.S. in Food Science and Human Nutrition with a minor in Spanish from the University of Florida. With over 14 years of teaching at CSULB in the College of Health and Human Services, Dr. Gray has chaired 40 Master’s theses, served on 41 Master’s thesis committees, and mentored 15 undergraduate researchers. She employs the social ecological model in her teaching to address social, community, and policy contexts of health behaviors, incorporating service-learning experiences such as partnering with a local rescue mission to deliver nutrition lessons. Dr. Gray co-leads the Food Insecurity in Higher Education subcommittee of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior Higher Education Division, where she developed a research project on nutrition students’ training to address food insecurity, including survey design, IRB approval, and administration planning.

Dr. Gray's research interests encompass community nutrition, nutrition in policy, school nutrition, global issues in nutrition, social and cultural influences on food habits and nutrition status, and curriculum development. She has received the CSULB President’s Award for Team Achievement as part of the Basic Needs Team in 2023 and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Nutrition in Higher Education Award from the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior in 2022. Her scholarly contributions include numerous peer-reviewed publications, such as Gray et al. (2024) 'Food Insecurity knowledge and training in interdisciplinary health professions education' in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior; Gray et al. (2024) 'CalFresh Healthy Living implementation across eight universities: A qualitative process-focused evaluation' in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; Landry et al. (2024) 'Food security as a basic need: College students need greater support from institutional administration' in the Journal of American College Health; and contributions to the textbook Community Nutrition in Action (Boyle, 2021). As a faculty mentor for the NIH-funded Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity Initiative, she has guided projects like the SUPERKids nutrition education program for parents and children. Additionally, she co-led a mentoring program for new faculty in the College of Health and Human Services from 2015 to 2020, delivering trainings on teaching, research, service, and faculty life.