KINGSTON, R.I. – June 3, 2026 – University of Rhode Island graduate student Adeleke Justin Akinkurolere will present ground-breaking research on ingestive behaviors at NUTRITION 2026, an international gathering of nutrition professionals on July 25-28 in National Harbor, Maryland.
A Ph.D. student in URI’s College of Health Sciences, with a specialization in nutrition, Akinkurolere is a finalist in the American Society for Nutrition’s Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science Poster Competition. His poster on “Relationships Between Water Sipping Microstructure and Food Intake in Adults” ranked in the top 10% of the nearly 750 submissions.
The poster describes how multimodal wearable sensors can be used to detect and analyze ingestive behaviors. Akinkurolere became a collaborator on the research project in the fall of 2024 as a graduate exchange student from Italy’s University of Calabria.
The research team included Kathleen Melanson, URI nutrition professor; Theodore Walls, URI psychology professor; Nathan DeSalvo, URI psychology graduate student; and Professor Edison Thomaz and graduate student Cody Arvonen from The University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering. The group’s use of digital video and inertial motion sensors to understand the microstructure of ingestive behavior is detailed in an article published in the journal Nutrients in May.
Melanson advised Akinkurolere when he was an exchange student and continued in that role after Akinkurolere joined the Ph.D. program and Melanson’s Human Energy Balance Laboratory in fall 2025.
“Adeleke has been involved in every phase of this work, including Institutional Review Board submission, participant recruitment, data collection, protocol management, and data analysis,” said Melanson.
The professor described what makes Akinkurolere’s research different from other studies on ingestive behaviors.
“To date, research on ingestive behaviors has mainly focused on just food or just beverages, but Adeleke is considering both together in multi-course meals,” said Melanson. “By coupling this with machine-learning-enabled wearable technology, his research will help move this area of study forward with capabilities that were not previously possible.”
Akinkurolere’s project will be judged on originality and significance, clarity, methodological rigor, quality of results, and the strength of the major take‑home message.
“My goal is to demonstrate how sipping behaviors might manage the speed and amount of food we consume, hence enhancing dietary evaluation and promoting tailored nutrition recommendations,” said Akinkurolere, who is from Ondo State in Nigeria.
Akinkurolere expects to complete his Ph.D. in spring 2029.
“After I graduate, I hope to continue in academia while also contributing to the food and nutrition industry, particularly in areas related to dietary monitoring, functional foods, and eating‑behavior research,” said Akinkurolere.