JOEL GITTELSOHN
USA - BALTIMORE
Dr. Gittelsohn is a Professor in the Center for Human Nutrition and the Global Obesity Prevention Center, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Gittelsohn is a nutritional anthropologist and public health nutritionist. For the past 24 years, Dr. Gittelsohn has focused on developing, implementing and evaluating community-based programs for the primary prevention of chronic disease in disadvantaged ethnic minority populations. With 194 publications in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. Gittelsohn has led multiple food source-centered intervention trials aimed at improving the food environment and providing skills and nutrition education needed to support healthy food choices in the Marshall Islands, on three American Indian reservations, in Baltimore City, and for Native Hawaiian communities. Dr. Gittelsohn developed a multi-institutional program for diabetes prevention in 7 First Nations communities (Zhiwaapenewin Akino’maagewin) in food stores and schools, which was extended to five American Indian communities (OPREVENT) and additionally included worksites. He is currently implementing a multi-level program for child obesity prevention in Baltimore City (B’More Healthy Communities for Kids (BHCK)), working with policymakers, recreation centers, corner stores, carryouts, families and via social media. As part of BHCK, he developed an agent-based model that simulates the after-school food foraging behavior of low income African American children, predicts their risk for developing obesity, and have used this as a tool to engage city policymakers and move forward policy to improve the food environment. These programs have shown success in increasing knowledge, healthy food purchasing and consumption of healthy promoted foods at the consumer level, in reducing obesity, and in improving stocking and sales at the retail level.
LU QI
USA - BOSTON
Dr. Lu Qi obtained a medical degree in China and PhD at Tufts University in the United States. He is now an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Professor of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. He is also Adjunct Professor at Peking University, China; and Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China. Dr. Qi’s major research interests have focused on nutritional and genetic epidemiology of obesity, type 2 diabetes and related cardiovascular diseases. His recent research topics also include epigenetics and metabolomics, and the complex interactions between omics events and lifestyle/diet factors in relation to metabolic disorder. He has extensive experience in leading epidemiology and genetic studies in large cohorts, randomized clinical trials, and international collaborations. He is currently the Principal Investigator of five NIH-funded grants, and several grants funded by other foundations. He serves as Editor-in-Chief for World Journal of Diabetes; Associate Editor for BMC Medical Genetics, Regional Editor (North America) for Current Diabetes Reviews; and severs as editorial board member for several journals such as Journal of Nutrition, Nutrition Reviews, and Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism. He was awarded ‘Roger R. Williams Award for Genetic Epidemiology (2008)’, ‘The Mark Bieber Award (2009)’, and ‘Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award for New Investigators (finalist; 2010)’ by American Heart Association; and ‘Michaela Modan Memorial Award (2010)’ by American Diabetes Association. He is a fellow of American Heart Association (FAHA), American College of Nutrition (FACN), and The Obesity Society (FOS).
LUIS A. MORENO
SPAIN - ZARAGOZA
Luis A. Moreno is Professor of Public Health at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). He is also Visiting Professor of Excellence at the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and affiliated member at the Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity. He did his training as Medical Doctor and his PhD thesis at the University of Zaragoza. He studied Human Nutrition and Public and Community Health at the University of Nancy (France). He has participated in several research projects supported by the Spanish Ministry of Health, and the European commission (HELENA, IDEFICS, EURRECCA, ENERGY, ToyBox, iFamily and Feel4Diabetes). He has published more than 400 papers in peer reviewed journals. He is the coordinator of the GENUD (Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development) research group, at the University of Zaragoza. He is a former member of the ESPGHAN Committee of Nutrition, current President of the Spanish Nutrition Society and President of the Danone Institut of Spain.
MARGA C. OCKÉ
NETHERLANDS - BILTHOVEN
Dr Marga Ocké (1964) studied Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.; where she also received her PhD degree. Since 1990, she works at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. Her early work was as a nutritional epidemiologist in the context of large cohort studies, among which the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, the Zutphen Study and the Seven Countries Study. From 2003 onwards her work activities focused more on dietary monitoring. As a senior scientist she coordinates the Dutch national food consumption surveys, and is project leader or work package leader of various national and international projects in this field.
Her current scientific interests are: dietary assessment methodology, evaluation of dietary intake and dietary pattern analysis, and dietary validation studies. Marga is co-author of about 30 policy advice reports and 150 papers in peer-reviewed international journals.
MARIO SIERVO
UK - NEWSCASTLE UPON TYNE
Dr Siervo is a clinical scientist with a specialty in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Medicine obtained at the University of Naples, Italy. He was awarded his PhD in Human Physiology and Nutrition at the University of Cambridge. Dr Siervo worked for one year at the Laboratory of Biological Modelling at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC and, in December 2011, he was appointed as a Lecturer in Nutrition and Ageing at Newcastle University. He is currently an MRC Programme Leader Track in Nutrition and Ageing Track at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge and a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Nutrition and Ageing at Newcastle University. Dr Siervo’s research aims to understand the influence of nutrition on lifelong health and prevention of age-related chronic metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. The group includes two core research themes: 1) Ageing and Body Composition Phenotypes and 2) Nitric Oxide Pathway and Vascular Ageing. The objectives are to investigate the age-related modifications of arterial elasticity, adiposity and muscle mass contribute to the increase in hypertension, type 2 diabetes or coronary heart diseases that occur with increasing frequency as age increases. Dr Siervo has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, contributed to several book chapters and serve on the editorial board of the Proceedings of Nutrition Society, Clinical Obesity, Journal of Nutrition Health and Ageing and Global Epidemic Obesity.
NADIA SLIMANI
FRANCE - LYON
Head, Dietary Exposure Assessment Group (DEX)
Nutrition and Metabolism Section (NME)
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Nadia Slimani (female), is a senior scientist at IARC. She has MSc in Cellular Biology and Physiology and a Post-graduate Diploma in Nutrition in Developing Countries. She got her PhD degree in Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Wageningen (The Netherlands). Head of the DEX group, Dr Slimani has a longstanding experience in developing, validating and implementing standardized dietary assessment methodologies for international nutrition studies (EPIC and GloboDiet), as well as generating and analyzing dietary exposure data across Europe, through different partnerships and leadership. She is the coordinator of the EPIC nutrition working group and has acted as Principal Investigator and (co-) Work Package leader in international European Commission funded projects i.e. EPIC, EFOVAL, EuroFIR-Nexus, EPIC, EMP-PANEU, PANCKE, BBMRI-LPC, EuroDISH, and DEDIPAC. She is currently leading the Global Nutrition Surveillance initiative (GloboDiet initiative) being conducted at IARC in collaboration with WHO and its different regional branches (including the GloboDiet Latin America branch – LA DIETA project), and benefiting from a strong network. Dr Slimani is an internationally established researcher in the field of nutritional epidemiology with 295 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals (H-index: 52, times cited: 9611).
YOUNG-IN J. KIM
CANADA - TORONTO
Dr. Young-In Kim is a staff gastroenterologist in the Division of Gastroenterology at St. Michael’s Hospital, and Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto. He is a senior scientist at the Keenan Research Center for Biomedical Science of St. Michael’s Hospital. Dr. Kim received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1987. He completed his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine in 1990 and subspecialty training in Gastroenterology in 1992 both at the University of Toronto. He completed two postdoctoral research fellowships in Clinical Nutrition (Molecular Nutrition and Carcinogenesis) at Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and New England Medical Center at Tufts University (1992-1995) and in Molecular Biology in Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School (1994-1995). Dr. Kim is a clinician scientist with 75% of his time committed to research and 25% to teaching and clinical activities. He is appointed to 2 graduate departments (Nutritional Sciences and Institute of Medical Science) at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Kim’s research focuses on several aspects of nutrition (in particular, folate and its synthetic form, folic acid) and colorectal and breast cancers at the molecular, cellular, and translational levels, including prevention, carcinogenesis, epigenetics, pharmacogenetics, and nutrigenomics. More recently, his research program has expanded to investigate the effets of maternal and early life nutriton on epigenetic programming and cancer risk of the offspring. Dr. Kim’s research program intergrates epigenetics, molecular and cellular biology, molecular epidemiology, cancer biomarkers, and nutritonal biochemistry, and bridges wet-bench laboratory and translational sciences. His research program has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, US Army Breast Cancer Research Program, American Institute for Cancer Research, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, International life Sciences Institute, and other peer-reviewed funding agencies.