Rena Mendelson (MS, DSc, RD) has taught in the School of Nutrition at Ryerson for more than thirty years. She teaches the Nutrition and Metabolism course, Communications and a senior seminar course on energy balance. She was director of the school and has also served at Ryerson as the associate vice president academic and first dean of Graduate Studies. Mendelson was the principal investigator of the Ontario Food Survey and is working on a study of the Canadian landscape of nutrition marketing of foods. She served on the Ryerson University Board of Governors, chaired the Board of the Canadian Council on Food and Nutrition and was a member of the Transitional Council of the Ontario College of Dietitians. Mendelson currently acts as the nutrition section head for the Canadian Obesity Network. She is the 2008 Faculty Teaching Award recipient for Ryerson President's Award for Teaching Excellence and is an inaugural award winner of the Maurice Yeates Graduate School Outstanding Contribution to Graduate Education Award.