College of Natural Sciences

2018–2019: Cindy Wolff

Cindy is an innovative social entrepreneur whose organizational creativity, scholarship, and applied research in nutrition, health, and obesity prevention have been widely recognized nationally and internationally as well as throughout California. She is the author or co-author of 40 published peer-reviewed original research articles and 50 published abstracts.

While serving as Executive Director of the Center for Health Communities (CHC) at CSU, Chico, Cindy was honored with the 2016 Career Achievement Award from the University Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

Among other professional accolades she has received the Outstanding New Researcher and Outstanding Dietetic Educator Award from the American Dietetic Association (now the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics), and the 2009 Korten Champion for Children Award, from the Network for a Healthy California, for programmatic excellence. The CHC is also a notable success. The Center has garnered more than $55 million in grants since its inception in 2001, and now develops and manages community health programs throughout California.

Cindy is a fifth-generation Chico resident. Her family has contributed to, and participated in, the local university experience for four generations. In addition, for decades her dad operated Butte Feed and Warehouse at the corner of First and Ivy Streets, next to “the teacher’s college,” as the University was generally known then, and her grandparents lived in a house where Langdon is now located.

Cindy Wolff began her university education at CSU, Chico as a Biology major and completed her BS in Dietetics at UC Davis in 1975. She returned to Chico to complete an advanced degree in Public Administration (MPA) in 1982. Following international work, she completed her PhD in Nutritional Science at Colorado State University in 1987 and joined the faculty of the Nutrition and Food Science Department at Chico State that same year.