Leslie Mikkelsen, MPH, RD

Managing Director
Prevention Institute

Leslie Mikkelsen is Managing Director of Prevention Institute. She leads a team of Prevention Institute staff focused on environmental and policy approaches to promoting healthy eating and physical activity, especially in communities of color and low-income communities. Since 1999, Ms. Mikkelsen has directed projects synthesizing academic research and learnings from the field into a set of tools and materials that delineate best practices and promising approaches for environmental changes, including the ENACT (Environmental Nutrition and Activity Community Tool) and the ENACT Local Policy database. Ms. Mikkelsen provides training and technical assistance to government agencies, community collaboratives and foundations on building effective interdisciplinary collaboratives to support environmental and policy change. She currently serves as Learning Consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Childhood Obesity Team. She is also co-founder and Project Director for the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments, a California coalition promoting a broad agenda that has influenced state legislation and the Governor’s California Obesity Prevention plan. A hallmark of Ms. Mikkelsen's work is her long-standing commitment to addressing inequities, and she builds on her decade long-experience working for the Alameda County and New York City Food Banks directing programs to address hunger and mobilize community advocacy.