1334 Eckles Ave, Food Science & Nutrition Building
St. Paul, MN 55108
United States
BSc (hons) Food Sciences and Human Nutrition from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan, Mphil Food Sciences and Human Nutrition from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan, PhD Nutrition Sciences (ongoing)
Biography
Noor e Huma is a Ph.D. student in Nutritional Sciences department at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, working under the mentorship of Dr. Andres Gomez. Her research investigates the role of fermented foods, particularly kombucha, in modulating the gut-brain axis, with a focus on how diet-dependent shifts in the gut microbiome influence anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors. Her work integrates mouse models with bioinformatics and data science approaches, including 16S rRNA and shotgun metagenomic sequencing and multi-omics data integration.
Her research has been recognized with numerous awards and fellowships, including the MnDRIVE Global Food Ventures Graduate Student Professional Development Program (2024), the Future Leader Mentorship Fellowship from the American Society for Microbiology (2024-2025) and the Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Department of Food Science and Nutrition (2026).
Outside the lab, Noor enjoys traveling, inventing new recipes, and spending time outdoors in nature.
Areas of Interest
- Gut Brain Axis
- Gut microbiome
- Fermented foods
- Mental Wellbeing
- Bioinformatics
Select Publications
Noor E. Huma, Samuel Davison, Kylene Guse, Carrie Walls, Stephanie Rutschke, April Sackett, Gabriel Blanco-Ruiz, Tammy A. Butterick, Junwei Zhang, Chi Chen, Juan Pablo Damián, Christopher Faulk, Andres Gomez, Diet-dependent effects of kombucha on the gut microbiome and neuroactive potential: Associations with reduced anxiety and depressive-like behaviors in mice, Food Bioscience, Volume 85, 2026, 110017, ISSN 2212-4292, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbio.2026.110017.