About the Editors
Editors-in-Chief
Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar, USA
Former president of The Obesity Society (2014-2015), current professor and chair of the department of Nutritional Sciences and Helen Devitt Jones Endowed Chair at Texas Tech University, Nikhil Dhurandhar has over 37 years of experience as a physician and nutritional biochemist. During this time, he treated over 15,000 patients for obesity. Having published over 160 scientific articles and book chapters, and received 47 patents, Nikhil also coined the term "Infectobesity" to describe obesity of infectious origin. His research team was the first to identify adipogenic effects of adenoviruses that cause obesity in animals, and are associated with obesity in humans and non-human primates. His team also identified a novel adenoviral protein that is being investigated for its potential as an anti-diabetic drug. His current research focuses on molecular biological aspects of obesity and diabetes, as well as clinical treatment of obesity. His life and work have been featured by numerous media outlets and documentaries, including the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC-UK, and CNN.
David Stensel, UK
David is Professor of Exercise Metabolism in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, UK, where he has worked in a variety of roles (including Associate Dean for Research and Associate Dean for Enterprise) since 1999. Prior to this David worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Physical Education at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (1993 to 1999). David has researched topics relating to physical activity, health, and obesity for over 30 years, beginning with his PhD work (sponsored by the British Heart Foundation) which examined exercise and lipid metabolism. More recently David’s work has focused on appetite hormones and central (brain) appetite responses to exercise. Much of David’s work has been completed within the NIHR funded Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. David is co-editor of the textbook Physical Activity and Health: The Evidence Explained which is widely used on exercise science courses in the UK and internationally. In addition to David’s position at Loughborough University, he is Professor of Exercise Metabolism in the Faculty of Sport Sciences at Waseda University, Japan, and he holds an Adjunct Professorship in the Department of Sports Science and Physical Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. David is also a member of the British Nutrition Foundation Scientific Committee. Further details of David’s work are available at his Loughborough University website.
Associate Editors
Andrew W. Brown, PhD, University of Arkansas, USA
Andrew W Brown, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Biostatistics Core Director for the Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention with Arkansas Children’s Research Institute. He has conducted research using simulation, in vitro, ex vivo, animal, and human observational and interventional models. He conducts “research on research” through qualitative and quantitative research summaries, characterizing reporting practices that perpetuate scientific misinformation, and evaluating methodological and statistical choices that may lead to misinterpreted research. He has received local, regional, and national recognition, including the Mead Johnson Award from the American Society for Nutrition for work accomplished within 10 years of postgraduate training. He is a Fellow of The Obesity Society, and has served in leadership roles with the American Society for Nutrition, The Obesity Society, and the American Public Health Association, and is a member of AAAS, American Statistical Association, and Sigma Xi. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biochemistry from Iowa State University with a graduate minor in Statistics, earned his doctoral degree from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in the Interdepartmental Nutrition Program with a minor in Statistics, and completed postdoctoral training with the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center, emphasizing meta-research, rigor, reproducibility, and transparency.
Sai Krupa Das, USA
Sai Krupa Das is a Senior Scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, both at Tufts University. She has over 20 years of experience in human nutrition research and in the field of energy metabolism. Her research interests include examining the role of diet composition and energy metabolism in body weight regulation and metabolic health, dietary interventions addressing the obesity epidemic, calorie restriction (CR) and aging, and methodology for capturing diet and physical activity. She has examined energy expenditure in adults with varying weight status and is an expert on doubly labeled water and other methodologies for measuring energy intake and expenditure and body composition. During her career, Dr. Das has conducted several clinical trials involving lifestyle interventions for targeting the obesity epidemic and attenuating age-related changes. These studies have included employees at worksites, hard-to-reach segments of the general population, military families, and people from around the world who face weight-related health challenges. She is widely published for her ongoing work on the landmark CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy) trial, the first largest randomized controlled trial of calorie restriction in humans. Dr. Das is currently Executive Director of the International Weight Control Registry, a Principal Investigator and co-chair of the National Institutes of Health-Nutrition for Precision Health Consortium, and a member of the Energy and Macronutrient Metabolism Research Interest Group of the American Society of Nutrition. She is also a member of the Obesity Society and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Das holds a Ph.D. in Human Nutrition from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston.
Emily Dhurandhar, USA
Dr. Emily Dhurandhar received her doctoral degree in Human Nutrition from Louisiana State University, where she completed her dissertation work at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She then completed her postdoctoral fellowship at University of Alabama at Birmingham, and held her first tenure-track position there before moving and continuing her assistant professorship in the Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management at Texas Tech. In 2020, she transitioned to being the Chief Scientific Officer of Obthera, Inc. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed abstracts, peer-reviewed journal publications or book chapters, but she is most recently well known for her research in weight bias and how it influences obesity care. She joined the IJO editorial team in 2022.
Sujoy Ghosh, PhD, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, USA
Dr. Sujoy Ghosh is an Associate Professor in the Program for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders and Centre for Computatinal Biology at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore. He also directs the Laboratory of Computational Biology at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, USA. Dr. Ghosh obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Notre Dame, USA, and completed postdoctoral training at Duke University, USA. Prior to arriving at Singapore, Sujoy was a Group Leader and Medical Genetics Advisor at GlaxoSmithKline, USA. He was also a Senior Research Scientist and Director of Research at the Center for Translational Health Equality Research at North Carolina Central University, USA. Dr. Ghosh’s research employs integrative bioinformatics and machine learning tools for investigating the genetic and genomic architectures underlying cardiometabolic disorders, with a special focus on biological pathways and interaction networks, and with the goal of identifying and functionally validating novel disease gene candidates and biomarkers of disease processes. His lab collaborates extensively with national and international investigators for analysis and interpretation of complex next generation sequencing datasets from diverse therapeutic areas. Dr. Ghosh has published over 125 peer reviewed articles and received competitive funding from the NIDDK, NIMHD, American Heart Association and Ministry of Education, Singapore.
James A. King, UK
James King is a Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology within the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University in the UK. Prior to this appointment, James undertook several years of post-doctoral research within the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. Broadly, his research interests surround the ability of exercise and diet to prevent and manage obesity-related metabolic disease. Specific areas of active enquiry include the interaction between exercise, appetite regulation and energy balance, as well as the therapeutic effects of diet and exercise within type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). James has published over sixty peer-reviewed original articles, reviews and book chapters.
M. S. Westerterp Plantenga, The Netherlands
Prof. dr. M. S. Westerterp Plantenga is Professor of Food Intake Regulation in Humans at Maastricht University, Faculty of Health, Medicine, Life Sciences, Nutrim, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on energy-homeostasis and reward-homeostasis. This encompasses the neuro-endocrinology of food-intake, energy expenditure and substrate oxidation, and the role of circadian rhythm and sleep, in the perspective of body-weight regulation and obesity. Margriet Westerterp-Plantenga participated in European projects, such as Diogenes, Full4Health, and PREVIEW. She has been a member of several editorial boards, scientific committees and of the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life sciences of Maastricht University.
Pediatric Associate Editors
Carl-Erik Flodmark, Sweden
Carl-Erik Flodmark, MD, Ph D and associated Professor/Reader (Docent) at Lund University, Sweden has been treating childhood obesity since 1986 and presented his thesis on this subject in 1993. A regional Childhood Obesity Unit was started as a project in 2001 at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. In 2004 the Unit became an official tertiary referral center for the Skåne Region, Sweden and since 2006 its responsibilities increased to cover the Hospital Regional Collaboration of South of Sweden. From 2002 until 2004 he was the President of the National Swedish Family Therapy Association. He has over 40 years of experience as a physician and treated over 3000 children for obesity. Currently he serves as peer reviewer for several journals. He has developed a new treatment model for childhood obesity using solution focused brief therapy and structural family therapy (SOFT – Standardized Obesity Family Therapy). He has been the founding President of SPOC (Scandinavian Pediatric Obesity Conference), which organized the pediatric satellite meeting at the International Conference on Obesity in Stockholm in 2010. He is also a board member and from 2012 until 2016 the President of the Swedish Association for the study of Obesity and a board member of the Pediatric Obesity Association of the Swedish Medical Association since 2015. Since 2015 he is working as a medical officer at the National Board of Health and Welfare but still continuing obesity research at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. In 2016 he was co-chair of the program organizing committee of European Obesity Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Nicola Santoro, USA
Nicola Santoro is a Pediatrician with a research interest in obesity and its metabolic complications. He is currently studying the effect of gut microbiome on the body composition and the metabolic pathways leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) in obese youth. He is also interested in defining the metabolic phenotype of youth with NAFLD and testing how common and rare variants in certain genes (PNPLA3, GCKR, TM6SF2 etc.) may interact with the environment to convey susceptibility to pediatric fatty liver disease. His research is funded by NIH, AHA, JDRF and Allen foundation. He serves as peer reviewer for several journals and funding agencies.
Statistical Editors
David Allison, USA
David B. Allison joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2001 where he is currently Distinguished Professor, Quetelet Endowed Professor of Public Health, Associate Dean for Science, Director of Office of Energetics, and Director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC). He received his Ph.D. from Hofstra University in 1990. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a second post-doctoral fellowship at the NIH-funded New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center. He has authored over 450 scientific publications and edited five books. He has won several awards, including the 2002 Lilly Scientific Achievement Award from The Obesity Society (TOS) and in 2009, he was awarded the Centrum Award from the American Society of Nutrition (ASN) and the TOPS research achievement award from the Obesity Society. In 2013, he was awarded the Alabama Academy of Science's "Wright A. Gardner" award and the American Society of Nutrition's (ASN) "Dannon Institute Mentorship" award and was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) in 2007. He serves or has served on numerous editorial boards of including the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, Obesity and Plos One.
Dr. Allison is also proud to be the founding Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Genetics.
Dr. Allison's research interests include obesity, quantitative genetics, clinical trials, and statistical and research methodology. He also serves as a frequent consultant and expert witness in the legal setting.
Darren Greenwood, UK
Darren Greenwood is a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds. He is Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Leeds and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, which advises Public Health England and other UK government organisations on nutrition and related health matters. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and his research interests include statistical and epidemiological methods applied to nutrition and cardio-metabolic health; nutrition across the life course; measurement error and validation of dietary assessment tools; complex randomized controlled trials; meta-analysis; cohort pooling and analysis of individual participant data; and big data applied to physical activity and nutrition.
Diana Thomas, USA
Diana M. Thomas is a Professor at the United States Military Academy, West Point. Dr. Thomas has been an active research mathematician for over 30 years with a focus on nutrition and obesity related modeling. She has worked with large complex and high dimensional datasets and co-invented the remote weight loss program, SmartLoss™, which has been clinically applied world-wide to guide and improve individual patient weight loss adherence through smartphone technology. Dr. Thomas has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and has led the development of over 10 freely accessible health calculators. Dr. Thomas is currently the PI of the Artificial Intelligence, Data Engineering & Machine Learning (AIDE-ML) Center for the Nutrition for Precision Health Consortium where she serves as a co-chair for the Steering Committee. She has held governance positions in the Obesity Society, the American Society of Nutrition, and the Mathematical Association of America. Dr. Thomas holds the 2012 Mathematical Association of American of NJ Distinguished Teaching Award, the 2015 Obesity Society George Bray Founder’s Award, and the 2023 American Mathematical Society Mary P. Dolciani Prize for Excellence in Research.
Reviews Editor
Magdalena Pasarica, USA
Dr. Pasarica is Professor of Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. She is board certified in Family Medicine, with a Ph.D. in Nutrition from Wayne State University and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Endocrinology from Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She has performed clinical, translational and basic research studies in the area of pathophysiology of adipose tissue, human adult stem cells, infectobesity, obesity and diabetes mellitus type 2. She was recognized early in her career as a rising star with the “New Investigator Award” from the International Obesity Society. In addition to research, Dr. Pasarica has dedicated her career to academic medicine through her work in training undergraduate and graduate medical students in primary care, obesity, diabetes and lifestyle medicine, and performing innovative medical education research. For complete expertise, Dr. Pasarica is also a practicing physician, which includes managing patients of all ages with obesity and educating other physicians about evidence-based obesity management. As the Medical Director of the Student-Run Free Clinic at her institution, Dr Pasarica has developed an advanced obesity evaluation and management component for which the clinic received the National Innovation Award for Healthcare Provider Training and Education from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the American College of Sports Medicine.