Glenda Lindseth presents "Food for Thought" in faculty lecture today Can a balanced diet make you smarter? In the next installment of the Faculty Lecture Series, Glenda Lindseth will reveal how nutrition affects cognitive thought in her lecture: “Food for Thought: Nutrition and Cognition.” The lecture will be held Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 4:30 p.m. in the North Dakota Museum of Art. A 4 p.m. reception will precede the lecture, which is free and open to the public. Lindseth is a professor of nursing practice and role development and associate dean, and director of the College of Nursing Office of Research. Lindseth and her UND colleagues are currently wrapping up a four-year Department of Defense study involving the effects of diet on cognition and flight performance. “My work essentially involves an examination of the effects of manipulating macronutrients (fat, protein, and carbohydrates) in the diets of healthy young adults and then measuring the effect that it has on cognition scores” said Lindseth. “Results are indicating that flight performance scores for pilots consuming high-fat and carbohydrate diets are significantly better than for pilots who consumed high-protein diets, suggesting that a brief manipulation of diet could significantly impact performance on a test of short-term memory scanning and flight performance.” Lindseth will review the details of the Dietary Effects On Cognition and Flight Performance study as well as her plans to translate the results. “One of my most recent projects is the implementation of a Translational Research Planning Grant that will allow UND to plan and develop a proposal for a UND Center for Translational Research” she said. That center would assist researchers in translating their research so the results will be applicable to the community. Lindseth was also a key player in securing nearly $4 million in grant funding to build a 30,000-square-foot state-of-the-art Behavioral Research Center. The Center will house multidisciplinary behavioral research for nursing and psychology research teams and provide training for health care staff. An extensive list of publications, research grants, special lectures, and awards offer a mere glimpse into the effect Lindseth’s research has had on the field of nursing and dietetics. Her extensive multidisciplinary research portfolio includes funded studies addressing behaviorally based nutritional interventions, and she is a Fellow of both the American Dietetic Association and the American Academy of Nursing. Awards received include the UND Founders Day Faculty Scholar Award, U.S. Air Force Recognition Award, the American Dietetic Association Service Recognition Award, North Dakota Nurses Association Research Nurse of the Year, and the Sigma Theta Tau Outstanding Researcher Award. Lindseth received her undergraduate degree at North Dakota State University in Fargo, a Master of Nursing from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and her Ph.D. in nursing curriculum and instruction from Saint Louis University in Missouri. She also completed NIH-sponsored post-doctoral study at Wayne State University in Detroit. The UND Faculty Lecture Series is planned by Chester Fritz Distinguished Professors, who hold the University's highest faculty honor, and is funded by the Office of the President.