Dr. Keshari Thakali is an Assistant Professor at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and directs the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center Vascular Programming Lab. Her laboratory studies maternal nutrition, physical activity, and obesity, and how gestational exposure to maternal obesity can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease in offspring. Her lab continues to determine the physiological mechanisms giving rise to this risk, and how factors such as exercise and nutrition can affect the health and well-being of offspring. A primary area of interest of her lab is the study of perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), a paracrine regulator of smooth muscle tissue, which, as some studies suggest, may be a key link between cardiovascular disease and obesity.