Nicholas Paul Hays, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Dietetics and Nutrition
College of Health Related Professions

Nicholas P. Hays received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, Master of Science in Nutrition, and Graduate Certificate in Gerontology from Case Western Reserve University.  He completed his doctoral studies in Human Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy.  He was an Assistant Professor (with Graduate Faculty status) in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition in the College of Health Related Professions from 2003 through 2010.

Dr. Hays provided consistently outstanding educational experiences to students in the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition from 2004 through 2010.  While his primary appointment was in the Department of Geriatrics as a researcher, he enthusiastically supported the teaching mission and articulated and advocated for the synergistic relationship between teaching and research.  In the words of Dr. Hays,

“Teaching is rewarding and complementary to my other tasks and helps to refine my own ideas and research program.  I feel that…the work done in the laboratory, in the field, and in creating important publications, grant proposals, and presentations can actually be classified as teaching in the sense that one is striving to communicate and educate a student, lab technician, reviewer, research subject, reporter, citizen, politician, or other individual.  It is extremely gratifying to be involved in graduate student education, and to play an important mentoring role in the development of students into nutrition professionals.”

For Dr. Nick Hays, the classroom is also his laboratory.  He speaks of experimenting with different writing assignments and continually refine and alter teaching methods to improve courses, using student understanding, engagement, interest, motivation, and evaluations as the targeted outcome measures.