GORDON JENSEN, MD, PHD, MOVES TO UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT
Gordon Jensen, MD, PhD, who most recently served as chair of the Department of Nutrition at Pennsylvania State University and is a distinguished member of Nutrition Today's Editorial Board, is the new senior associate dean for Research and professor of medicine and nutrition at the University of Vermont School of Medicine. Congratulations, Gordon!
SHIRIKI KUMANYIKA, MPH, PHD, IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT OF APHA
At its 2015 meeting, Dr Shiriki Kumanyika, MPH, PhD, became the immediate past president of the American Public Health Association (APHA). She is emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. During her 15-year tenure on the Penn Medicine faculty, Dr Kumanyika also served as the associate dean for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, was the founding director of Penn's multischool MPH program and held a secondary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Nutrition Section. She has a unique interdisciplinary background that integrates her training and experience in social work, nutrition, epidemiology, and public health to address prevention of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases and health disparities. Dr Kumanyika founded and chairs the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network, or AACORN, a national network that seeks to improve the quantity, quality, and effective translation of research on weight issues in African American communities. She has authored or coauthored more than 300 scientific and professional publications and lectured widely in the United States and abroad.
Dr Kumanyika has been active in APHA since 1976. Dr Kumanyika was the vice chair of the Department of Health & Human Services Secretary's Advisory Committee on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020. Her achievements and service in public health have been recognized with several honors and awards, including the Excellence in Dietary Guidance Award from the APHA Food & Nutrition Section (1998) and election to the Institute of Medicine (2003). She is currently a nutrition epidemiology adviser to the World Health Organization and the World Cancer Research Fund and cochair of the Policy & Prevention Group of the World Obesity Federation.
OBESITY SOCIETY PRESENTS AWARDS DURING ANNUAL MEETING
The Obesity Society presented awards that recognized specific research achievements and major contributions to the basic science, treatment, and prevention of obesity at its recent meeting in Boston. This year's awards and highlights of the careers of several obesity researchers included the following:
George A. Bray Founders Award: Samuel Klein, MD, FTOS
Dr Klein's research is characterized by the use of stable isotope tracers and cellular analysis of tissue samples in studies conducted in human subjects to simultaneously evaluate cellular, regional, and whole-body substrate metabolism. His laboratory at Washington University in St Louis is particularly interested in the mechanisms responsible for the metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity.
Mickey Stunkard Lifetime Achievement Award: Thorkild I. Sorenson, MD, ScD
Dr Sorenson is clinical professor at the University of Copenhagen, affiliated with the Institute of Public Health at the Faculty of Health Sciences, and chief physician in clinical epidemiology at the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation. He is director of the Institute of Preventive Medicine since 1993. His research program aims to improve knowledge about the role of genes and dietary intake and their interplay in human obesity. He has published almost 800 articles and has received the Hagedorn, the Codan, and the Erhoff prize and the Population Science and Public Health Award from the International Association for the Study of Obesity for Research and is a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.
Atkinson-Stern Award for Distinguished Public Service: Louis J. Aronne, MD
Dr Louis J. Aronne, MD, is weight management specialist and a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and has an adjunct appointment at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, a multidisciplinary obesity research and treatment program. Aronne is a past president of The Obesity Society and a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He edited the National Institutes of Health's Practical Guide to the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults and has authored more than 60 articles and book chapters on obesity. This award is sponsored by Nutrition Today Editorial Board member Judith Stern, DSc, and Richard Atkinson, MD, 2 other noted obesity researcher.
TOPS Research Achievement Award: Andrew Greenberg, MD
Dr Andrew Greenberg, MD, is the Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Professorship in Nutrition and Metabolism at Tufts University. His research centers on understanding the molecular, cellular, and systemic basis of obesity and its complications. A significant amount of his current research focuses on the proteins that regulate the cellular trafficking, storage, and metabolism of fatty acids and lipid metabolism.
Lilly Scientific Achievement Award: Dongsheng Cai, PhD, MD
Dr Dongsheng Cai, MD, PhD, is professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Institute of Aging, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He received his medical training and PhD in China from 1988 to 2000 and postdoctoral training at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School from 2000 to 2005. Dr Cai is an international leader in studying neural mechanism of aging as well as related metabolic syndrome.
IN MEMORIAM
Mona Reidenberg Sutnick, EdD
Mona Reidenberg Sutnick died late this past year. Dr Sutnick was an award-winning nutrition educator and author of the book Nutrition and Women's Health. Her first job out of college brought her to Indianapolis, and later she spent the early part of her nutrition career as a protein chemist at Pasteur Institute in Paris. She received a master's degree in nutrition from what is now called Drexel University. She taught at several Philadelphia universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Thomas Jefferson University, and Temple University. Dr Sutnick also appeared frequently on television and radio as a nutrition expert and wrote a long-running food and nutrition column in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. In 1981, she earned her doctorate in nutrition education from Temple University. Our condolences to her family and many friends and students.
USDA AWARDS $2 MILLION FOR NUTRITION EDUCATION AND OBESITY PREVENTION RESEARCH
The US Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture today awarded $2 million in grants to support research on nutrition education and obesity prevention for disadvantaged children and families at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Utah State University. The funding will help create 2 additional Regional Nutrition Education and Obesity Prevention Centers of Excellence, established through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.
The awards include the following:
* University of Tennessee at Knoxville research will focus to reduce obesity by analyzing programs to identify facilitators, barriers, best practices, training, and evaluation needs. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville will develop and disseminate resources tailored to the needs of those delivering SNAP-Ed and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program interventions.
* Utah State University is looking at research to improve USDA's ability to evaluate, create, and maintain effective nutrition education programs that result in healthier food choices and increased physical activity for participants.
One-third of our nation's children are overweight or obese; in our nation's health, it is important we leverage partners and innovative strategies to help children from low-income families grow and develop into healthy adults.
CALENDAR
The Probiotics Congress: Asia
February 29 to March 1, 2016
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
International Conference on Global Food Security
March 7 to 8, 2016
Miami, Florida
For more information, go to http://waset.org/conference/2016/03/miami/ICGFS
Experimental Biology
April 2 to 6, 2016
San Diego, California
For more information, go to http://www.faseb.org
World Congress on Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis, and Musculoskeletal Diseases (WCO-IOF-ESCEO 2016)
April 14 to 17, 2016
Malaga, Spain
For more information, go to http://www.wco-iof-esceo.org/
10th Congress of the International Society of Nutrigenetics & Nutrigenomics (ISNN)
May 23 to 26, 2016
Tel Aviv, Israel
Bacteriocins: Research, New Development, and Applications at IPC2016
June 6, 2016
Budapest, Hungary
For more information, write to [email protected]