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Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Planning Committee Members

Daniel G. Aaron, M.D., J.D., is a Heyman fellow at Harvard Law School; an attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and a member of the Justice Initiative, a collaboration between the law schools at Harvard and Howard universities aimed at furthering racial equity and justice. In July 2023, he will be associate professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah. His research examines the legal and social causes of death and poor health in the United States, and inequities therein. Specific foci include food systems, obesity, systemic racism, the current opioid crisis, tobacco products, and how these issues intersect with law and policy. Dr. Aaron holds a B.S. from Brown University, an M.D. from Boston University School of Medicine, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Curtis L. Archer has served as president of the Harlem Community Development Corporation since January 2006. He began his career in community development in 1989, in the New York City (NYC) Office of Business Development under Mayor David Dinkins, as a development manager in the Neighborhood Development and Commercial Revitalization Program. In 1992, Mr. Archer accepted a position with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, where he eventually reached the level of senior project manager and was responsible for moving several retail projects ahead in his native South Bronx neighborhood and in Co-op City, an area known as the “middle class experiment,” where he lived during his formative years. Following this, he served as supervisor for the City Business Assistance Program and then as director of economic development and liaison to the African American community for Borough President Claire Shulman’s office.

Mr. Archer next became director of small business development for the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone in 1997, but shortly thereafter was hired as the executive director of Rockaway Development and Revitalization Corporation, where he was successful in promoting the revitalization of the peninsula’s economic base and neighborhoods. Mr. Archer has been the recipient of many awards and citations, including the Distinguished Leadership and Service Award from the New York Professional Advisors for Community Entrepreneurs in 2017. He earned a bachelors in sociology and criminal justice from Mercy College and later attended Columbia University as a Ph.D. candidate in political science.

Neal Baer, M.D., M.S., is an award-winning showrunner, television writer/producer, physician, and author. He is also codirector of the master’s degree program in media, medicine, and health at Harvard Medical School, which is in its first year. Dr. Baer is currently executive producer of the Atelier Academy for Netflix Paris, where he teaches young French television writers how to become showrunners. He has served as executive producer and/or showrunner for shows such as Designated Survivor and Baking Impossible (both on Netflix), Welcome to Chechnya (HBO), Under the Dome (CBS), and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC). Dr. Baer was also executive producer of the groundbreaking NBC hit series ER. A member of the show’s original writing staff and a producer on the series for seven seasons, he was nominated for five Emmy Awards as a producer, among other awards. Additionally, Dr. Baer lectures at Harvard and Yale medical schools and around the world on public health advocacy, global health and social medicine, and chronic disease epidemiology. He serves on the board of fellows at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Baer is editor of The Promise and Peril of CRISPR, a collection of essays exploring the moral and ethical challenges posed by CRISPR technology, which will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2023.

Kierra Barnett, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a research scientist in the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is actively engaged in research and advocacy focused on improving health inequities experienced by historically marginalized populations. Dr. Barnett has conducted empirical research as a member of interdisciplinary teams that document associations between social determinants of health and health outcomes among socially diverse communities. She has collaborated with government, community, and academic partners on health equity research, with an eye toward informing and developing future intervention studies, institutional practices, and public policies. Her work specifically aims to understand the lived experiences of those most deeply impacted by health disparities and include

their voices in solutions, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Currently, Dr. Barnett serves as co-investigator and project director for a National Institutes of Health–funded mixed-methods research project aimed at understanding the impact of structural racism on maternal and child health outcomes. She received her B.S. in community health from the University of Illinois, and her Ph.D. and M.P.H. in public health/health behavior and health promotion from The Ohio State University.

Jason Block, M.D., M.P.H., is associate professor and director of research of the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. His primary research interests are the evaluation of governmental and institutional policies intended to change dietary behaviors and the use of large data systems for population health surveillance and exploration of the clinical epidemiology of chronic disease. Dr. Block is a practicing primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he sees his own panel of patients in a hospital-based clinic and supervises residents in their continuity clinic practice. Further, he codirects a clinical epidemiology course at Harvard Medical School and was awarded the Young Mentor award in 2017. Dr. Block served as senior advisor to the acting assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2016 to 2017. He attended Princeton University as an undergraduate and the Tulane University School of Medicine and School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine for his M.D. and M.P.H. He completed a primary care internal medicine residency and chief residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Michelle Moskowitz Brown is executive director at Local Matters, where she focuses on growing organizational impact and increasing education and access to healthy, delicious, and affordable foods to ensure everyone can eat well and feed their family. The organization supports diverse populations, including preschoolers in Columbus City Schools, women in recovery, and people managing chronic diseases. Local Matters partners with dozens of organizations across the state, reaching more than 20,000 individuals per year with life-changing programs. Currently, Ms. Brown chairs the Ohio Food Policy Network (OFPN), a statewide coalition dedicated to developing a food system that supports and serves all Ohioans, and she is a member of the Columbus & Franklin County Local Food Board, steering the work of the Columbus & Franklin County Local Food Action Plan, for which she served on the leadership team with county and city staff. She has served on the board of InHealth Mutual and VSA Ohio, the state organization on arts and disability, and is active with other community-based organizations in Ohio.

Prior to beginning her work with Local Matters in 2011, Ms. Brown managed not-for-profit organizations and programs in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, with a focus on arts and community development. Ms. Brown received her B.A. in dance anthropology from Antioch College and studied urban planning at the New York University Wagner School of Public Service. She holds a graduate certificate in public management from the Ohio State University Glenn School of Public Affairs.

Michelle Cardel, Ph.D., M.S., is an obesity and nutrition scientist, a registered dietitian, senior director of global clinical research and nutrition at WeightWatchers, and a faculty member at the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine, where she is also associate director for the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases. Her research has focused on (1) implementing effective healthy lifestyle interventions for individuals with overweight/obesity, particularly among underserved populations; (2) characterizing psychosocial factors, including low social status and food insecurity, which contribute to the development of obesity; and (3) improving gender and racial/ethnic equity in academia. Dr. Cardel is a member of American Society for Nutrition and was selected as a fellow of The Obesity Society for her contributions to the field of obesity. She has been co- or principal investigator on several funded obesity grants and has published more than 90 papers in high-impact medicine, obesity, and nutrition journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Pediatrics, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and Obesity. Dr. Cardel has been presented with a variety of awards, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Outstanding Woman Award, UAB’s President’s Diversity Award, and UF’s Exemplary Teacher Award for the College of Medicine, among others. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry at Florida State University and is a registered dietitian. Dr. Cardel earned a master’s degree in clinical nutrition and a doctoral degree in nutrition sciences from UAB.

Brian C. Castrucci, Dr.P.H., is an epidemiologist, public health practitioner, and president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which supports projects that advocate for health and social policy change, develop cross-sector partnerships, and elevate the state and local public health agency workforce. Dr. Castrucci has formed several multifunder collaboratives with business and philanthropic partners to align and expand available resources to achieve shared goals. Prior to joining de Beaumont, he was an applied epidemiologist and held leadership positions at the Georgia Department of Health, Texas Department of State Health Services, and Philadelphia Department of Health. Applying what he learned in his governmental public health practice,

Dr. Castrucci has led the Foundation to the forefront of issues that include integrating primary care and public health, assessing the governmental public health workforce, and prioritizing partnerships and policies as critical to solving our most complex health challenges. Dr. Castrucci provides interviews and editorials in The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNBC, STAT, the Associated Press, The Atlantic, and Politico, among others. He also has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, Fox News, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, and several local television affiliates. Dr. Castrucci has published nearly 90 peer-reviewed, scientific publications and has coedited five books. He earned a bachelor of arts in political science with the greatest distinction from North Carolina State University, a master of arts in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University, and a doctorate in public health leadership from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tongtan “Bert” Chantarat, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a research scientist at the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. His scholarship focuses broadly on identifying the mechanisms that produce and reinforce racial health inequities—particularly between Black and White people—and evaluating the potential impacts of policy interventions to disrupt these mechanisms. Dr. Chantarat is nationally recognized as an emerging leader in the fields of structural racism, work and workplace inequities, and quantitative methods for antiracist research. His innovative work on measuring structural racism and birth inequities in Minnesota earned him an award from the Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Science in 2022. Dr. Chantarat earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in health services research, policy, and administration from the University of Minnesota.

Jamie F. Chriqui, Ph.D., M.H.S., is senior associate dean and professor of health policy and administration in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois Chicago and director of health policy research for the UIC Institute for Health Research and Policy. She has more than 32 years’ experience conducting public health policy research, evaluation, and analysis, with an emphasis on chronic disease issues, including physical activity, nutrition, and obesity. Dr. Chriqui has served on numerous federal, foundation, and nonprofit panels and committees, including Institute of Medicine Committees on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention and Evaluating Progress in Obesity Prevention. She recently completed a 6-year term on the Community Preventive Services Task Force and coleads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Physical Activity Policy Research and Evaluation Network. She holds a B.A. in political science from Barnard College at

Columbia University in New York, an M.H.S in health policy from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, and a Ph.D. in policy sciences with a health policy concentration from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Carlos Crespo, Dr.P.H., M.S., is dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences and professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois Chicago. His main area of research involves the epidemiology of physical activity in the prevention of chronic diseases, with a focus on minority health issues. He lists more than 100 publications and has been a contributing author to five textbooks on minority health and sports medicine, and more than 30 government reports, including the Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health. Dr. Crespo received the 1997 U.S. Secretary of Health Award for Distinguished Service as part of the Salud para su Corazon campaign, and in 2003 became a health disparities and minority health scholar from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has served on the Board of Trustees for the American College of Sports Medicine, Oregon Health Policy Board, and the Executive Leadership Team of the NIH Diversity Program Consortium. Currently, Dr. Crespo serves on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee for the Community Guide for Physical Activity, and the Physical Activity Alliance Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and a member of the editorial board of the journal Cities and Health. Dr. Crespo received his B.S. in chemistry from Inter American University of Puerto Rico—San German, M.S. in sports health from Texas Tech University, and Dr.P.H. from Loma Linda University.

Sara J. Czaja, Ph.D., M.S., is Gladys and Roland Harriman professor of medicine and the director of the Center on Aging and Behavioral Research in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. She is also emeritus professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Czaja is also director of the National Institutes of Health multisite Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) and codirector of the Center for Enhancing Neurocognitive Health, Abilities, Networks, & Community Engagement, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), and the Gerontological Society of America (GSA). She served as president of Division 20 (Adult Development and Aging) of APA, and as a member of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences Board on Human Systems Integration, the Institute

of Medicine (IOM) Committee on the Public Health Dimensions of Cognitive Aging, and the IOM Committee on Family Caring for Older Adults. Dr. Czaja received the 2020 M. Powell Lawton Award from the GSA, 2015 M. Powell Lawton Distinguished Contribution Award for Applied Gerontology from APA, the 2013 Social Impact Award from the Association of Computing Machinery, and the Franklin V. Taylor Award from Division 21 of APA. She also received the Jack A. Kraft Award for Innovation from HFES, the APA Prize for Interdisciplinary Team Research, and the 2019 Richard Kalish Innovative Book Publication Award (GSA) with CREATE. Dr. Czaja holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Heather D’Angelo, Ph.D., M.H.S., is program director at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch within the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to joining NCI, she was an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. D’Angelo’s research expertise focuses on reducing cancer health disparities by understanding the role of the social, built, communication, and policy environments in influencing health behaviors related to cancer risk, especially diet, physical activity, and tobacco use. Her research interests also include using multilevel communication interventions, health behavior theory, and implementation science strategies to improve the delivery of cancer preventive interventions in health care settings. Dr. D’Angelo completed her postdoctoral training as an NCI cancer prevention fellow. She earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Northeastern University and an M.H.S. in international health with a concentration in human nutrition from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She earned her doctorate in health behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Jacqueline S. Dejean, D.L.P., M.A., is associate dean of research in the School of Arts and Sciences and associate dean of diversity and inclusion in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. She is creator and director of both the Visiting and Early Research Scholars’ Experience Program providing summer research intensives for undergraduate students and the Graduate Leadership in Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Program, a week-long intensive with semester practicum targeting graduate students interested in learning how to create diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice change in the workplace. Dr. Dejean has more than 25 years of experience in research administration in teaching hospitals, research institutes, and higher education settings. She is an organizational psychologist focused on institutional change and the manifestations of resistance to changes mandated by law.

Dr. Dejean earned her master’s in organizational psychology from the William James College and doctor of law and policy from Northeastern University.

Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, Ph.D., is professor, Helen Devitt Jones endowed chair, and chairperson of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Texas Tech University. Previously, he was John Henry Hernandez endowed professor in health promotion at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University and William Hardy endowed chair in obesity research at Wayne State University. Dr. Dhurandhar served as president of The Obesity Society, and currently serves as editor in chief of the International Journal of Obesity and as a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has treated more than 15,000 patients for obesity using lifestyle therapy as well as medication. Dr. Dhurandhar received the 2015 Osborne and Mendel Award from the American Society for Nutrition, the 2017 Bluebonnet Award from the Texas Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and a joint award from the American Society for Nutrition and the Korean Nutrition Society (2017). He received the 2018 Barnie Rushing Jr. Faculty Distinguished Research Award and President’s Excellence in Research Commercialization Award for 2022 from Texas Tech University, as well as the 2022 George Bray Founders Award from The Obesity Society. Dr. Dhurandhar has received funding from NIH, the National Science Foundation, and others. He has 50 U.S. and international patents and more than 170 scientific publications, and has given more than 100 invited talks. Dr. Dhurandhar received his M.S. in nutrition and food science from North Dakota State University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of Mumbai.

William H. Dietz, M.D., Ph.D., is a consultant to the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions and chair of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center on Prevention and Wellness at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University. He has also served as director of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity in the Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; professor of pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine; and director of clinical nutrition at the Floating Hospital of New England Medical Center Hospitals. Dr. Dietz has been counselor and past president of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition; past president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity; and a member of the advisory board to the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. He has received awards from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; the Association of State and Territorial Public Health Nutrition Directors; the American Dietetic Association; the American Academy of Pediatrics; the North American Association for the Study of Obesity;

and The Obesity Society. Dr. Dietz has authored more than 200 publications and edited five books. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Dietz received his B.A. from Wesleyan University and M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his residency at Upstate Medical Center, he received a Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Christina Economos, Ph.D., is dean ad interim, professor, and New Balance chair in childhood nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She leads a research team studying behavioral interventions, strategic communications, and promotion of physical activity using a systems approach to reduce childhood obesity. She has authored more than 150 scientific publications and is also cofounder and director of ChildObesity180, which brings together leaders from diverse disciplines to generate urgency and find solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic. Dr. Economos is involved in national obesity and public health activities and has served on four National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees including the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions and the Committee on an Evidence Framework for Obesity Prevention Decision-Making. She received a bachelor of science from Boston University, a master of science in applied physiology and nutrition from Columbia University and a doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from Tufts University.

Ihuoma Eneli, M.D., M.S., is a board-certified general pediatrician; professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University; and director of Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition in Columbus, Ohio. The Center is an internationally recognized tertiary care pediatric obesity center with activities that include advocacy, prevention, medical weight management, bariatric surgery, and research. Dr. Eneli is codirector of the NCH Childhood Obesity and Bariatric Surgery Fellowship, the only pediatric fellowship that trains both bariatric surgeons and pediatricians. In 2021, she was awarded the National Academic Pediatric Association Healthcare Delivery Award. Dr. Eneli coauthored the 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP’s) Clinical Practice Guideline on Childhood Obesity. She has received funding from several sources including National Institutes of Health and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Eneli has served in leadership and advisory roles for several organizations, including the AAP; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM); and Children’s Hospital Association. She is associate director for the AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight and vice chair of NASEM’s Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. Dr. Eneli received her M.D. from University of Nigeria and completed her pediatric residency and M.S. in epidemiology from Michigan State University.

Said Ibrahim, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is senior vice president of the Medicine Service Line for Northwell Health, chair of the Department of Medicine for North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and David J. Greene professor of medicine in the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. Previously, he was professor of population health sciences and founding chief of the Division of Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation at the Department of Population Health Sciences and inaugural senior associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Weill Cornell Medicine. Also, Dr. Ibrahim was professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, chief of medicine at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, and director of the VA National Center of Innovation for Health Equity Research and Promotion. His research on racial/ethnic variation in the use of knee/hip replacement in the management of end-stage osteoarthritis has been federally funded continuously for more than 20 years. Dr. Ibrahim is past recipient of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K24 award to mentor future generations of investigators on patient-centered research in health care disparities. Currently, he is associate editor for JAMA Health Forum and council member for the NIH National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Dr. Ibrahim received a B.A. in biology from Oberlin College, M.P.H. and M.B.A. from the Harvard School of Public Health, and M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He completed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Anthony Iton, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., is senior vice president for programs & partnerships at The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation whose mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. Dr. Iton oversaw the implementation of Building Healthy Communities (BHC), the foundation’s 10-year, billion-dollar, 14-site, multisectoral, place-based initiative designed to improve the health status of 1 million low-income Californians. Previously, he served for 7 years as Alameda County health officer and subsequently public health director. Dr. Iton’s primary interest is the health of disadvantaged populations and the contributions of race, class, wealth, education, geography, and employment to health status. He has worked as an HIV disability rights attorney at the Berkeley Community Law Center, a health care policy analyst with Consumer Reports, and a physician and advocate for the homeless at the San Francisco Public Health Department. He has served on the board of directors of Consumer Reports, Jobs For The Future, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee to the Director, and Grantmakers in Health. Dr. Iton received his M.D. at Johns Hopkins

University School of Medicine, and a J.D. and a M.P.H. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the California Bar.

Michelle Ko, M.D., Ph.D., is associate professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Her areas of interest include the intersections of policy, health care, and social structure, particularly how structural and institutional racism shape health and health care systems. Dr. Ko’s current projects have two main domains: (1) exposure to aspects of structural racism, including inequities in community violence and law enforcement over the life course and aging and cognitive decline among African Americans; and (2) systems and processes by which academic institutions, including academic medicine, produce institutional racism. Her past projects include neighborhood socioeconomic inequities and aging; health care safety net systems; Medicaid long-term services and supports; and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the health care workforce. Dr. Ko holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in health policy and management.

James (Jim) Krieger, M.D., M.P.H., is executive director of Healthy Food America and clinical professor at the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine. He previously worked for 25 years at Public Health of Seattle & King County as chief of chronic disease prevention. Dr. Krieger supports policy change to promote healthy eating and health equity through research, provision of technical assistance to policy makers and advocates, and direct advocacy. His work has led to improvements in school nutrition, implementation of the nation’s second menu labeling regulation, adoption of sugary drink taxes, sugary drink countermarketing campaigns, and increased access to healthy foods for people with low incomes. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and private foundations. Dr. Krieger was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Local Government Action to Prevent Childhood Obesity and its Committee on Evaluating Progress in Obesity Prevention. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Innovation in Prevention Award. He has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Krieger received his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, and M.P.H. at the University of Washington.

Shiriki K. Kumanyika, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S., is emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and research professor in the Department of Community Health & Prevention at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University. She has a

unique interdisciplinary background that integrates epidemiology, nutrition, social work, and public health methods and perspectives. The main themes in her research concern prevention and control of obesity and other diet-related risk factors and chronic diseases, with a particular focus on reducing health burdens in Black communities. Dr. Kumanyika is founding chair of the Council on Black Health (formerly the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network), which seeks to develop and promote solutions that achieve healthy Black communities. She is past president of the American Public Health Association and has served in numerous advisory roles related to public health research and policy in the United States and abroad. Dr. Kumanyika chaired the Institute of Medicine’s Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity from 2009 until its retirement in 2013. She currently chairs the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board. Dr. Kumanyika is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She received her M.S. in social work from Columbia University, master of public health from Johns Hopkins University, and Ph.D. in human nutrition from Cornell University.

Bruce Y. Lee, M.D., M.B.A., is a systems modeler and a computational, artificial intelligence (AI), and digital health expert, professor, writer, and journalist. Currently, he is professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, where he is executive director of the Center for Advanced Technology and Communication in Health, PHICOR (Public Health Computational and Operation Research) initiative, and AIMINGS (Artificial Intelligence, Modeling, and Informatics for Nutrition Guidance and Systems) Center. He is also founder and CEO of Symsilico. Dr. Lee has authored more than 245 scientific publications (including more than 105 first author and more than 85 last author), nearly all of which have focused on developing and using new systems, computational, and AI/modeling methods. Dr. Lee is senior contributor for Forbes, having written more than 1,500 articles covering various health-related topics, and he maintains a blog, “A Funny Bone to Pick,” for Psychology Today. He has also written for The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, STAT, HuffPost, and others. His work and expertise have been featured in media such as The New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, CBS News, U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, and National Public Radio. Dr. Lee received his B.A. from Harvard University, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Ginny Levine is managing director of marketing for the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida. In this role, she is responsible for helping to drive the USTA’s mission to

promote and develop the growth of tennis in the United States. Ms. Levine oversees all marketing efforts and activations to drive interest and engagement in tennis across a wide range of audiences. She particularly focuses on marketing in the youth space, and developed and launched Net Generation, the new youth brand for tennis in 2017. Ms. Levine recently led new brand positioning for the USTA to better position tennis as open for all, with the goal of democratizing tennis, fueling belonging, and changing industry behavior to lead with open-mindedness, inclusion, and flexibility. Prior to joining the USTA, she worked at several ad agencies, where she focused on brand development, positioning, and new product launches for companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, PWC, UPMC, Pfizer, GSK, and Eli Lilly. Ms. Levine sits on the Aspen Institute’s Project Play roundtable and has also worked with the Ad Council on a critical ad campaign in support of National Bullying Prevention Month, called “be more than a bystander.”

Laura Lindenfeld, Ph.D., is executive director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and dean in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. The Alda Center has trained more than 18,000 scientists worldwide and introduced more than 40,000 individuals to the Alda Method^®. The Center provides international leadership in conducting and connecting research and practice to advance clear and vivid science and medical communication. Dr. Lindenfeld’s work draws inspiration from the idea that we can make better, more informed decisions about how we shape our collective future. She is passionate about supporting scientists to communicate their work in more direct and engaging ways and advance meaningful, productive interactions with communities, stakeholders, and decision makers by strengthening linkages between knowledge and action. Much of Dr. Lindenfeld’s research focuses on environmental and sustainability communication, seeking to understand how we can support effective stakeholder engagement and build strong interdisciplinary teams and communicate our science more effectively and persuasively. Her work has appeared in a range of journals, such as Science Communication, Ecology & Society, Environmental Communication, Sustainability Science, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and Food & Foodways. With Fabio Parasecoli, Dr. Lindenfeld coauthored the book Feasting Our Eyes: Food Films and Cultural Identity in the United States (2016, Columbia University Press). She holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies from the University of California, Davis.

Rodney Lyn, Ph.D., M.S., serves as dean of the School of Public Health and professor in the Department of Health Policy and Behavioral Sciences at Georgia State University (GSU). His research is focused on childhood obesity prevention, school and community health, and the reduction of

health disparities, with special interest in identifying effective policy and system approaches to increasing physical activity and healthy eating in children. Dr. Lyn has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on these topics and has led or contributed to funded grants totaling more than $16 million from federal and state agencies, foundations, and nonprofit organizations. He currently codirects the GSU Prevention Research Center, which works in partnership with community leaders and organizations to identify pressing community health needs and intervene through applied research. Other recent projects include the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health; Georgia Childhood Obesity Prevention Program; Partnerships to Improve Community Health program; and a study examining mortality disparities and resilience in low-income minority communities in the South. Dr. Lyn previously served as deputy director for GSU’s National Institutes of Health–funded Center of Excellence on Health Disparities Research. He is an active member of the American Public Health Association. Dr. Lyn received his B.A. from St. Andrews Presbyterian College in biology and physical education, and his M.S. in exercise science and Ph.D. in educational policy studies/higher education from Georgia State University.

Kristine Madsen, M.D., M.P.H., is professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. She is a pediatrician and research scientist with expertise in the design and evaluation of interventions related to cardiovascular risk in youth and health inequities. Her research is focused on identifying policies and programs that will improve the nutrition and physical activity environments for youth and their families and will reduce health inequities. Dr. Madsen received her B.A. in math and English from the University of California, Berkeley; M.P.H. in epidemiology from Indiana University; and M.D. from the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Angela Odoms-Young, Ph.D., is associate professor and director of the Food and Nutrition Education in Communities Program in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Previously, she was on the faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition. Her research explores social and structural determinants of dietary behaviors and diet-related diseases in low-income and Black/Latinx populations and centers on identifying culturally appropriate programs and policies that promote health equity, food justice, and community resilience. Dr. Odoms-Young has more than 20 years’ experience partnering with communities to improve nutrition and health and more than 200 academic publications, book chapters, and presentations. She has served on numerous advisory committees and boards, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board; the Institute of Medicine committees to develop the nutrition standards for the

National School Lunch Program/School Breakfast Program and revise the food packages provided in the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children; and the Council on Black Health. Dr. Odoms-Young is a member of the American Heart Association Chicago Metro Board, Grow Greater Englewood, and Blacks in Green. She also serves as the inaugural equity visiting scholar at Feeding America. Dr. Odoms-Young received her B.S. in foods and nutrition from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and M.S./Ph.D. in community nutrition from Cornell University. Additionally, she completed fellowships at The Pennsylvania State University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

May Okihiro, M.D., is associate professor and community researcher in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine. She is also senior pediatrician and director of research at the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. Born and raised in Hawaii, she earned her medical degree from the University of Hawaii and completed her pediatric residency at the University of Washington Children’s Hospital Program. Following residency, she worked abroad for several years in the Federated States of Micronesia and in Fiji. Dr. Okihiro returned to Hawaii in 1999 and has been actively involved in promoting health and wellness through her research, advocacy, and clinical work.

Ijeoma Opara, Ph.D., M.S.W., M.P.H., is assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health and director of the Substances and Sexual Health (SASH) laboratory. She is a community-based participatory researcher working with youth and community organizations dedicated to reducing youth substance use and improving mental health outcomes for youth in urban communities. Her research focuses on strengths-based approaches for urban youth substance use and HIV prevention, and on highlighting racial- and gender-specific strategies in prevention research for Black girls. Dr. Opara has received awards not only for her research but also for her dedication to mentoring the next generation of public health practitioners, including from the City of Paterson for her role as a community-based participatory researcher in youth substance use prevention. She is also a licensed social worker and has worked primarily with youth and women of color living with co-occurring disorders. She received her B.A. in psychology from New Jersey City University, M.S.W. from New York University (with a specialization in primary and behavioral health integrated care), M.P.H. in epidemiology from New York Medical College, and Ph.D. in family science and human development from Montclair State University. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Opara received an external predoctoral fellowship from the Behavioral

Sciences Training on Drug Abuse Research, housed at New York University and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded her dissertation research and doctoral training.

Courtney P. Paolicelli, Dr.P.H., was assistant deputy administrator for policy support at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) at the time of the workshop. In this role, she oversaw a multimillion-dollar research portfolio of projects examining the impacts and operations of the USDA nutrition assistance programs. Dr. Paolicelli continues to serve as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and as faculty at the U.S. Military-Baylor University Master’s Program in Nutrition. She is a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified health education specialist by training, and began her career as a dietitian for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children in San Diego, California. Dr. Paolicelli also worked in a variety of other public health and clinical settings before beginning her tenure with the federal government in 2013. She received her doctorate of public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center in 2012, and her master of public health in nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004.

Rebecca L. Pearl, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology and Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions. She was previously assistant professor and director of research at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Weight and Eating Disorders, where she maintains an adjunct appointment. Dr. Pearl is director of the Body Image and Stigma Laboratory, which investigates health- and appearance-related stigma and associated health outcomes. Her work explores biosocial mechanisms by which stigma affects health, as well as structural-level processes that may perpetuate or prevent stigma. Dr. Pearl’s research primarily focuses on weight stigma, with a particular interest in developing interventions to reduce internalized stigma among patients with obesity. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Psychological Association and The Obesity Society, and she is a 2022 recipient of the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. Dr. Pearl received her A.B. from Duke University and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale University. She completed her predoctoral clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, Ph.D., is tenured professor at the Yale School of Public Health; director of the Office of Public Health Practice, Global Health Concentration, and Maternal Child Health Promotion programs;

and principal investigator of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Center. His research program of three decades has led to large-scale global improvements in infant and young child feeding, early childhood health and development, and household food and nutrition security outcomes, and is based on rigorous community-engaged observational epidemiological, experimental, and quasi-experimental studies complemented with implementation science mixed-methods research. Dr. Pérez-Escamilla has published more than 320 peer-reviewed research articles and has given hundreds of invited lectures across world regions. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and was awarded the 2021 Philip R. Nader Lectureship by the University of Texas School of Public Health. Dr. Pérez-Escamilla has served as senior scientific advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Institutes of Health; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; United States Agency for International Development; UNICEF; World Health Organization; Food and Agriculture Organization; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research initiative; and Newman’s Own Foundation, among others. Dr. Pérez-Escamilla received his B.S. in chemical engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana. He received his M.S. in food science and his Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of California, Davis, where he also completed his postdoctoral training.

Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., is director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health. He oversees NIMHD’s annual budget to advance the science of minority health and health disparities research. NIMHD conducts and supports research programs to advance knowledge and understanding of health disparities, identify mechanisms to improve minority health and reduce health disparities, and develop effective interventions to reduce health disparities in community and clinical settings. Previously, Dr. Pérez-Stable was professor of medicine and chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he practiced primary care internal medicine for 37 years, following a panel of about 200 patients and supervising and teaching students and residents in the ambulatory care and hospital settings. Dr. Pérez-Stable spent 32 years leading research on smoking cessation and tobacco control in Latino populations in the United States and Latin America, addressing clinical and prevention issues in cancer control research; supporting early career scientists in research on minority aging in clinical and community settings; and addressing research questions on clinical conditions such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and dementia. He earned a B.A. in chemistry and M.D. from the University of Miami. He then completed his primary care internal medicine

residency and a research fellowship in general internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sean Phelan, Ph.D., M.P.H., is associate professor and head of social & behavioral sciences in the Division of Health Care Delivery Research and the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery at Mayo Clinic, where he holds a joint appointment in the Department of Family Medicine. His expertise is stigma and its impact on care quality and outcomes for people with stigmatized or marginalized identities. His research has focused on factors contributing to negative attitudes about people with larger body sizes, people with disabilities, and people from minoritized race, ethnic, sexual orientation, and gender identity groups. Dr. Phelan received his A.B. in psychology from the University of Chicago and his M.P.H. and Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.

Nicolaas (Nico) Pronk, Ph.D., M.A., is president of the HealthPartners Institute and chief science officer at HealthPartners, Inc., and holds faculty appointments as affiliate professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and visiting scientist in social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Pronk’s work is focused on connecting evidence of effectiveness with the practical application of programs and practices, policies, and systems that measurably improve population health and well-being. He served as cochair of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2030 (Healthy People 2030). Dr. Pronk is a former member of the Community Preventive Services Task Force and the Defense Health Board. He was founding and past president of the International Association for Worksite Health Promotion and currently serves on boards and committees at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the American Heart Association; and the Health Enhancement Research Organization, among others. He is widely published in both the scientific and practice literatures and is an international speaker on population health and well-being. Dr. Pronk received his doctorate degree in exercise physiology at Texas A&M University and completed his postdoctoral studies in behavioral medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

Lesley Shiery, M.S., is a registered dietitian and associate manager with the General Mills Bell Institute of Health & Nutrition, where she provides nutrition and regulatory support to the General Mills North America Food-service business. Prior to supporting the foodservice team, she served as the

health and wellness platform lead for the cereal and yogurt operating units developing health and nutrition strategies to support nutrition renovation, innovation, and message opportunities. Ms. Shiery has experience in clinical nutrition and public relations, and prior to joining General Mills, she worked as a corporate dietitian for Target. She graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor of science in nutrition and dietetics and received a master of science in nutrition communication from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Ms. Shiery completed her dietetic internship at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Stephanie A. Navarro Silvera, Ph.D., M.S., is professor of public health at Montclair State University, where her work has focused on racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes. Previously, she was an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the department of Epidemiology and Population Health and a nutrition educator at the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey. Dr. Silvera was awarded the National Cancer Institute’s K01 Career Development Award in 2009. She has served on the boards of the American Public Health Association Cancer Caucus and the American Society for Preventive Oncology Junior Member and Membership Committees, and she is a current member of the New Jersey Society for Public Health Education Academic Advisory Board. Dr. Silvera has been called upon as an expert for the New York/New Jersey media to interpret and explain the epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic. She earned a bachelor’s in biology from Rutgers University and a master’s in nutritional sciences and doctorate in epidemiology from Yale School of Medicine, where she focused on nutritional epidemiology and cancer outcomes.

Fatima Cody Stanford, M.D., M.P.H., M.P.A., M.B.A., is associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She has served as health communications fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as behavioral sciences intern at the American Cancer Society. Dr. Stanford received the Gold Congressional Award, Joseph E. Johnson Leadership Award from the American College of Physicians (ACP), the Young Leadership Award from the Massachusetts ACP, and the Emory Rollins School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Award. From the Massachusetts Medical Society, she received the Award for Women’s Health and the Grant Rodkey Award. From the American Medical Association, she received the Foundation Leadership Award, Paul Ambrose Award, Inspirational Physician Award, and Dr. Edmond and Rima Cabbabe Dedication to the Profession Award. In 2019, Dr. Stanford was Suffolk District Community Clinician of the Year, and in 2020, she was The Obesity Society Clinician of the Year.

In 2022, she was the National Academy of Medicine’s Scholar in Diagnostic Excellence. She received her B.S. and M.P.H. from Emory University, her M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, her M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and her executive M.B.A. from the Quantic School of Business and Technology. After completing her internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of South Carolina, she completed her obesity medicine and nutrition fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Leah D. Whigham, Ph.D., is founding director of the Center for Community Health Impact (CCHI) and associate professor with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health in the Department of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Whigham has more than 20 years of experience in basic, clinical, and community sciences. Her research has increased understanding of metabolism as it relates to obesity, the influence of nutrients and immune function on body composition, and the impact of the environment on nutrition and physical activity. Driven by the needs of the community and informed by the best science, the CCHI provides a bridge between research and application to effectively mobilize individuals, families, organizations, and communities to build a culture of health. Dr. Whigham has also served as secretary/treasurer of the executive committee of The Obesity Society, and editor in chief of Nutrition & Diabetes. She received her B.A. from Iowa State University and her Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Stella S. Yi, Ph.D., M.P.H., is associate professor in the Department of Population Health, Section for Health Equity at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Previously, she worked for 6 years at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control on research pertaining to and evaluation of city nutrition policies and community-based initiatives to reduce the burden of chronic disease. Dr. Yi is a cardiovascular epidemiologist with research focusing on community, clinical, and policy-based initiatives for the reduction of chronic disease morbidity and mortality, with expertise on health disparities in Asian American and immigrant populations and community-based, collaborative research approaches. She holds an M.P.H. from the Yale School of Public Health and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.