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Updated: May 11, 2026

Virtual Agent for Real-Time Motivational Interviewing by Integrating Adaptive Nonverbal Behavior and Language Models
Published on: December 23, 2025
Straight talk with... Mandana Arabi. Interview by Alisa Opar
Abstract:
Malnutrition affects more than 2 billion people worldwide today, making them more prone to disease and cognitive development problems and more likely to die young. To address this massive health threat, the New York Academy of Sciences created the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science in 2011. At its helm is Mandana Arabi, a physician-scientist born in Iran who previously worked as a nutrition scientist for UNICEF, the United Nations agency devoted to helping children, where she traveled the world developing large-scale programs to address infant and child malnutrition. Arabi may now be more rooted to her office in lower Manhattan, but she has certainly kept things moving at the newly established institute. This past December, she hosted a two-day conference, attended by World Health Organization (WHO) officials and many global experts, dedicated to creating a forward-looking research agenda for nutrition science. And last month the institute awarded its first research grants to investigate the intersection of nutrition and disease prevention. Arabi spoke with Alisa Opar about how the Sackler Institute hopes to put nutrition research on the scientific map.
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