Kimberly Chew

“Just be passionate about your major and be ready to step up your confidence, because there are a lot of opportunities out there that you could never imagine.”

-Kimberly Chew

Kimberly Chew hopes to become a clinical dietitian in the future. When Kimberly has spare time, she enjoys baking and hanging out with friends.

Kimberly Chew seizes opportunity to improve campus, helps students find resources for food and health information

Kimberly Chew helped a close friend through the hardships of bulimia, and saw the effects of the disorder firsthand. This drove Kimberly to take two years of college courses in dietetics in Malaysia before pursuing her last three years of schooling at Iowa State University. Eventually, she hopes to obtain a master’s degree in dietetics.

Kimberly hopes to help others by working alongside doctors to develop meal plans for those who are struggling with unhealthy food consumption, providing counseling, and identifying healthy eating habits to help them reach their nutritional goals.

“[Transferring] was kind of scary at the beginning because of all of the transitions,” she said. “Everything was so different, like education and communication. After I got used to [Iowa State], it was really exciting and I realized there are a lot of people I can reach out to and a lot of opportunities that Iowa State offers.”

Kimberly has been actively involved in the campus community through clubs and undergraduate research. As a student health and wellness ambassador, she helps organize booths for events to inform students on their health resources, from physical to mental health. She works with other ambassadors to carry out presentations on student health.

“I just wanted to be part of the reason that students know about the resources we provide, because a lot of students are afraid to use our resources or didn’t even know about the resources we have,” she said.

Kimberly is also a member of the Student Dietetics Association. She attends meetings biweekly to listen to speakers and professors discuss the dietetics career field after graduation.

Kimberly works to address food insecurity for students by being an inventory coordinator for The SHOP (Students Helping Our Peers), Iowa State’s on-campus food pantry. Her main role is to stock up food items for The SHOP, located in the Food Science Building, and reach out to donors to encourage food contributions. The on-campus food pantry is a safe space for students and staff to pick up bags of food without requiring identification.

She also conducts undergraduate research under food science and human nutrition professor Manju Reddy, comparing iron quality in different foods and identifying foods containing fake iron. This research identifies the best and worst quality of iron for consumption. Kimberly researches

Kimberly advises other students to be open-minded when it comes to classes and involvement.

“Just be passionate about your major and be ready to step up your confidence, because there are a lot of opportunities out there that you could never imagine,” she said.