Charlene W. Compher, PhD, RD, LDN, FASPEN

Dr. Compher’s team science research is directed towards clarifying the impact of dietary or nutritional intake, in the context of gut intestinal microbiota and metabolites, on health and disease.

Dr. Compher’s scholarship is committed to equitable access to a healthy diet and evidence-based, high quality nutrition care. Nutritional vulnerability can result from food insecurity or structural racism with limited employment opportunities as well as from the impacts of unsafe neighborhood environments, limited access to healthy food. The strong association between unhealthy diet and increased burden of chronic noncommunicable diseases is recognized in the US and globally. Chronic and acute diseases are linked with malnutrition that requires diagnosis and effective treatment. Dr. Compher’s research, clinical practice, and global collaborations converge to address these key concerns in vulnerable populations.

NURS 524-001: Advanced Human Nutrition and Micronutrient Metabolism

In the classroom, Dr. Compher employs innovative approaches to reduce the impact of socioeconomic inequities on learning. She is committed to outstanding mentorship as a strategy to enable all students to attain their highest potential.

Research on Gut Microbiota and Metabolites to Advance Nutrition Science

Much of Dr. Compher’s current research examines links between diet, the gut microbiota, metabolites, and important clinical outcomes. As Director of Diet Assessment Research for the Penn-CHOP Microbiome Program https://pennchopmicrobiome.chop.edu/people, and as Director of Clinical Initiatives for the Penn Center for Nutrition Science and Medicine (PenNSAM https://www.med.upenn.edu/pennsam/), she facilitates the incorporation of dietary intake information into team science projects. She leads the development of the Penn Healthy Diet (PHD) survey to obtain information about diet quality for nutrition counseling sessions as well as for microbiomic and metabolomic investigations.

As a clinician educator for the Clinical Nutrition Support Service at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Compher is an Advanced Practice Dietitian Specialist and team leader for home parenteral nutrition and for research. The Clinical Nutrition Support Service, comprised of dietitians, nurses, pharmacists, and physicians, is the oldest nutrition team in the U.S., providing evidence-based nutrition care to high-acuity adult patients.

Dr. Compher was president of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN) in 2016-17, a multi-professional society that seeks to lead the science and practice of clinical nutrition. She published 16 clinical guidelines for the provision of enteral or parenteral feedings for children or adults as editor in chief of clinical guidelines for ASPEN. She partners with leaders from global nutrition societies to develop the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM), an approach to standardize the diagnosis of malnutrition in adults in clinical settings and enable identification of best practices in treatment of malnutrition. Dr. Compher is a thought leader in clinical nutrition and metabolism.

Dr. Compher is deeply committed to collaboration in research, clinical practice, and education. She excels at facilitating the work of groups to achieve greater research productivity, quality of care, and optimized learning experiences.

• Normal M. Lang Distinguished Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy, School of Nursing 2019
• Fellow, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
• Honorary memberships, European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, and Chinese Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
• Excellence in Research Awards, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
• Faculty Mentorship Award, Biobehavioral Health Systems Department, Penn Nursing
• Alumni Award for Service to the Profession of Dietetics, Drexel University