The Obesity Society 2024 Awards and Grants

The Obesity Society's awards and grants programs recognize specific research achievements and major contributions to the basic science, treatment, and prevention of obesity.

The George A. Bray Founders Award recognizes an individual for significant contributions that advance the scientific or clinical basis for understanding or treating obesity and for extensive involvement with The Obesity Society (TOS). A TOS member receives a plaque and a $1000 award.

Jeffrey M. Zigman, MD, PhD, FTOS

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dallas, Texas

Learn to Love LEAP2

Dr. Jeffrey Zigman received an MD/PhD from the University of Chicago. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago and a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Jeff has spent the last 17 years at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where he is currently Professor of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, with a primary appointment in the Center for Hypothalamic Research. His lab's research focuses on ghrelin cell physiology, contributions by the ghrelin system to metabolic disorders, and neuronal mediation of ghrelin action. He is proud to serve as a member of the TOS Governing Board.

The Friends of Albert (Mickey) Stunkard Lifetime Achievement Award is designed to recognize people who, like Mickey Stunkard, have made a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the field of obesity in terms of scholarship, mentorship, and education. This member of The Obesity Society receives a plaque and a $1000 award.

Samuel Klein, MD, FTOS

Washington University School of Medicine

St. Louis, Missouri

Metabolic Heterogeneity of Obesity

Dr. Samuel Klein is the William H. Danforth Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Human Nutrition, Medical Director of the Clinical and Translational Research Unit, and Chief of the Division of Nutritional Science and Obesity Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Klein received an MD degree from Temple University Medical School and an MS degree in Nutritional Biochemistry and Metabolism from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine and a Clinical Nutrition fellowship at Boston University Hospital, a Nutrition and Metabolism Research fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and a Gastroenterology fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, and Nutrition.

The TOPS Research Achievement Award recognizes an individual for singular achievement or contribution to research in the field of obesity. This award is made possible through an annual grant from the Take Off Pounds Sensibly Club, Inc. (TOPS). The recipient receives a $5000 award along with a plaque and a $1000 stipend to cover travel expenses for ObesityWeek®.

Daniel J. Drucker, MD

Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital

Toronto, Ontario

The Evolving Universe of GLP-1 Medicines – What Does the Future Portend?

Daniel Drucker is a senior scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His laboratory studies the mechanisms of action of gut hormones.

The Atkinson Stern Award for Distinguished Public Service recognizes an individual or organization whose work has significantly improved the lives of those affected by obesity, whether through research, public policy, patient care, or other means. This award was established by a donation from Thomas A. Wadden, PhD. The recipient receives a plaque and a $1000 award.

Richard Cleland, JD

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP

Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington

Bloomington, Indiana

Richard Cleland served as head of the Iowa Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division from 1983 to 1991. Mr. Cleland joined the Federal Trade Commission in 1991 and from 2002 to 2022 he served as an Assistant Director in the Division of Advertising Practices. During his career, Mr. Cleland prosecuted companies making fraudulent heath and weight loss claims, obtaining injunctions against future violations and redress for consumers; coordinated consumer education efforts; and forged collaborative relationships with weight loss experts.

Created in 2015, the Thomas A. Wadden Award for Distinguished Mentorship honors a midcareer or senior member of The Obesity Society for distinguished mentorship of the Society's early-career investigators. The award is named for Thomas A. Wadden, PhD, who for more than 30 years has mentored many individuals who pursued successful careers in obesity research and clinical care. The recipient receives a plaque and a $1000 cash award.

Leah D. Whigham, PhD, FTOS

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

El Paso, Texas

Dr. Leah Whigham is an Associate Professor with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health and is the founding Director of the Center for Community Health Impact (CCHI) which uses community-driven, science-informed strategies to address obesity at a population level. She is also the founding Director of the El Paso Nutrition & Healthy Weight Clinic, part of UTHealth Houston. Dr. Whigham has over 25 years of experience in basic, clinical, and community sciences related to obesity.

The Jules Hirsch Innovation Award recognizes an early-career investigator whose novel work will significantly impact the field of obesity. This member of The Obesity Society receives a plaque and a $2500 award.

Pasquale E. Rummo, PhD, MPH

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

New York, New York

Dr. Pasquale Rummo received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2016. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he has spent the last 6 years examining the impact of food policies and interventions on diet practices, including evaluating the role of healthy eating strategies in promoting healthy diet practices and food purchasing behaviors in multiple retail settings. Examples include testing the impact of financial incentives, taxes, calorie and warning labels, and various behavioral economic strategies on food purchases, including a focus on understanding inequities in the design and impact of these strategies.

The George L. Blackburn Award for Excellence in Obesity Medicine was created to recognize the outstanding contribution of an exceptional midcareer individual in the field who is making significant and innovative contributions to obesity medicine in the spirit of the transformational contributions made by Dr. George Blackburn during his career. Defining aspects of the recipient should include not only exemplary research achievement, but also demonstrable impact on the advancement of the practice of obesity medicine. This award is funded by the George L. Blackburn Foundation for Nutrition Medicine. The recipient receives a plaque and a $5000 award.

Victoria Catenacci, MD

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Aurora, Colorado

Safe and Sound – How Lessons Learned from Very Low-Calorie Diets and Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Can Inform Potential Risks of Antiobesity Medication Usage

Dr. Victoria Catenacci received her MD from Yale University in 1998 and completed a residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital in 2002. She completed a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at the University of Colorado in 2005 and is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She maintains a clinical endocrinology practice focusing on diabetes and weight management, and she has a research interest in optimizing behavioral approaches for weight loss and weight loss maintenance.

The Presidential Medal of Distinction was created to honor and recognize the efforts of individuals or organizations who have made an impact on the care of persons with obesity through outstanding and enduring scientific achievements; public service with the aim of improving the health of the public; tenacious and/or bold effort to spotlight obesity-related issues; and advocacy for persons with obesity.

José Fernández, PhD, FTOS

Professor of Nutrition Sciences

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama

“In recognition of your leadership and scholarship in the field of obesity that has inspired a more diverse group of scientists and clinicians, as well as for your service to The Obesity Society.”

Dr. José Fernández obtained his PhD in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University, training in genetics of complex traits under the advisory of Dr. Gerald McClearn and working with the three most commonly used models for genetic research: fruit flies, mice, and humans. He continued his academic training at the New York Obesity Research Center at Columbia University as a postdoctoral fellow focusing on genetics of obesity, under the mentorship of Dr. David B. Allison, and receiving specialized training in statistical models to improve the identification of genetic and environmental influences on obesity-related characteristics.

For more than 20 years his area of research has been the understanding of population differences in obesity and body composition measures, with a particular emphasis in the intersection of ancestral genetic background with measures of the social environment as tools to explain variability within and among groups socially categorized by race or ethnicity.

His work has been presented in national and international scientific forums and conferences, bringing him awareness of the importance of translating the science behind obesity research into improving the health of all populations.

Alison E. Field, ScD, FTOS

Professor of Epidemiology

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island

“In recognition of your groundbreaking research to identify distinct subtypes of obesity and eating disorders across the life-span and advancing the goal of precision prevention and treatment, as well as for your service to The Obesity Society.”

Dr. Alison Field is a public health researcher specializing in nutritional, pediatric, and psychiatric epidemiology. Most of her research focuses on determining the optimal classification for eating disorders and identifying the modifiable causes, correlates, consequences, and course of overweight and eating disorders among children, adolescents, and adult women.

Dr. Field's research portfolio is primarily on understanding the causes and consequences of weight gain, obesity, and disordered eating and identifying obesity phenotypes among adolescents and emerging adults. She is a cofounder and former Co-Director of the Growing Up Today Study, a cohort of more than 20,000 youth throughout the United States. Her published research has appeared in Archives of Internal Medicine, JAMA Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Obesity, among others.

Dr. Field has served The Obesity Society in numerous roles, including being a member of the ObesityWeek® Board of Managers, The Obesity Society Council, and the Annual Scientific Program Planning, Ethics, and Nominating committees. She was Chair of the Pediatric Obesity Section, the Ethics Committee, and the Scientific Program Planning Committee, during which time she launched the policy track, which continues to flourish.

Tiffany Powell-Wiley, MD, MPH

Stadtman Investigator

The National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

“In recognition of your groundbreaking research on the impact of social determinants of health on obesity and cardiovascular risk and your dedicated service in advancing health equity, as well as for your service to The Obesity Society.”

Dr. Tiffany Powell-Wiley graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During medical school, she spent a year at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a research fellow in the Clinical Research Training Program. Dr. Powell-Wiley graduated from Duke University School of Medicine and completed her Master's Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining NIH, Dr. Powell-Wiley completed an Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a Cardiology fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Powell-Wiley also served for 1 year as the Cardiology Division's first chief fellow. From 2011 to 2017, Dr. Powell-Wiley was an Assistant Clinical Investigator at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. From 2011 to 2014, she held a joint appointment in the Office of the Associate Director of the Applied Research Program of the National Cancer Institute.

Since 2017, Dr. Powell-Wiley has been an Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator with a joint appointment in the Cardiovascular Branch of the Division of Intramural Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

The Oded Bar-Or Award, named for Oded Bar-Or, MD, was founded in 2007 by the Pediatric Section of The Obesity Society to recognize significant contributions to basic and applied pediatric obesity research that have resulted in major advances in our scientific understanding of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of pediatric obesity. The recipient receives complimentary registration to ObesityWeek® and is presented with a plaque during the section meeting at ObesityWeek.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, PhD, RDN, LD, CNS

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Austin, Texas

Dr. Deanna Hoelscher received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in Biological Sciences. She is Regional Dean at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health in Austin and Director of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living. Her work focuses on the development, evaluation, and dissemination of obesity prevention programs and policies for low-income, diverse youth and their families.

The Clinician of the Year Award was founded in 2015 by the Clinical Management of Obesity Section of The Obesity Society to recognize significant contributions in the evidence-based treatment of obesity. The recipient receives complimentary registration to ObesityWeek® and is presented with a plaque during the section meeting at ObesityWeek.

W. Scott Butsch, MD, FTOS

Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine

Cleveland, Ohio

Dr. Scott Butsch is the Director of Obesity Medicine in the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. He is a former Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Weight Center from 2007 to 2017. He completed a Clinical Nutrition fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and was the first physician in the United States to complete a subspecialty fellowship in Obesity Medicine, first established at the HMS/MGH in 2007.

The Practitioner of the Year Award is a new award founded in 2024 by the Clinical Practice Section of The Obesity Society to recognize outstanding service in the evidence-based treatment of obesity by a Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, Clinical Psychologist, or Nutritionist/Dietitian. The recipient receives complimentary registration to ObesityWeek® and is presented with a plaque during the section meeting at ObesityWeek.

Michelle Cardel, PhD, FTOS

WeightWatchers International

Gainesville, Florida

Dr. Michelle Cardel is an obesity and nutrition scientist, registered dietitian, Chief Nutrition Officer at WeightWatchers, and an Adjunct Professor at University of Florida's College of Medicine. She is a Co-Director for the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, and she has been extensively involved in The Obesity Society (TOS) for the last 18 years, including her roles on the Nominating Committee, Chair of the Communications Committee, and TOS Governing Board. Her research focuses on (1) the development and implementation of effective weight management interventions, (2) how low social rank (e.g., low socioeconomic status, food insecurity) impact eating behavior and risk for obesity, and (3) how psychosocial factors influence the development of obesity and obesity-related disease.

The Alison Field Early-Career Award is a new award founded in 2024 by the Pediatric Obesity Section of The Obesity Society and recognizes an early-career investigator who has demonstrated a significant contribution in furthering our understanding of the causes, consequences, treatment, or prevention of pediatric obesity. The recipient receives complimentary registration to ObesityWeek® and is presented with a plaque during the section meeting at ObesityWeek.

Katherine N. Balantekin, PhD, RD

University of Buffalo

Buffalo, New York

Dr. Katherine Balantekin received her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Pennsylvania State University in 2015. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine. She is now working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at the University at Buffalo where she is studying parental influences on eating behavior in children with obesity and disordered eating.

This grant is offered by The Obesity Society as a member service to foster and stimulate new research ideas in any area of investigation related to obesity. The grant targets early-career investigators and postdoctoral trainees by funding proposals that demonstrate a high likelihood of resulting in new and innovative approaches in obesity research. Applicants may request up to $25,000.

Kelsey Chatman, MD

Emory University

Atlanta, Georgia

Novel Noninvasive Test for Metabolic Dysfunction Associated Steatotic Liver Disease in the Pediatric Population

The Ethan Sims Young Investigator Award recognizes excellence in research by young investigators based on their submitted abstracts and presentations during ObesityWeek®. Each year, several finalists who are members of The Obesity Society at the student or early-career stage are selected during the Call for Abstracts. Each finalist receives complimentary registration and a stipend of $1500 to cover travel expenses for ObesityWeek®. The finalists are invited to present their oral abstracts during a concurrent session where the award is presented. At the conclusion of the session, two recipients are selected, one for Basic Science and the other for Clinical Research. They each receive a $1000 award.

Basic Science Awardee

Eunsang Hwang, PhD

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dallas, Texas

Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists Target the Hypothalamus to Curb Hunger

Clinical Research Awardee

Vicky Pavlou, MS, RD

University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

Time-Restricted Eating vs. Calorie Restriction on Mood and Quality of Life in Type 2 Diabetes

These awards honor two students for their master's thesis or doctoral dissertation. The evaluation is based on significance, relevance/potential impact in the field of obesity, scientific methodology, writing quality, overall approach and scope, and innovation. The members of The Obesity Society (TOS) receive a $2000 award and a plaque. They also receive complimentary registration to the current ObesityWeek®.

Thesis recipient

Amanda Finn, MS

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama

Doctoral dissertation recipient

Kaja Falkenhain, PhD

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Foster-Schauer International Travel Award is provided to non-US, early-career investigators or students who present at ObesityWeek®. The Obesity Society (TOS) selects one recipient based on the quality and ranking of an accepted abstract during the Call for Abstracts. The recipient must be a TOS early-career or student member, reside outside of the United States, and travel to ObesityWeek to present the oral or poster abstract. The recipient receives a $2500 stipend to cover travel expenses.

Jieun Yu

KAIST

Daejeon, Republic of Korea

The Early-Career Travel Award supports early-career investigators in their efforts to contribute to the field of obesity. Two recipients who are members of The Obesity Society receive a stipend of $1500 to assist with travel expenses for ObesityWeek®.

Christine Brichta, MD

Lurie Children's Hospital

Chicago, Illinois

 

Marcela Abrego, MPH

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas

WW sponsors this award to give students in the fields of nutritional science, behavioral weight management, or clinical obesity research travel assistance to ObesityWeek®.

Ariela Goldenshluger, RD, MPH

Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv, Israel

 

Daisuke Hayashi, MS

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, Pennsylvania

 

Pedro Bregion

State University of Campinas

Campinas, Brazil

 

Marianne Olaniran

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Dallas, Texas

The Rolls-Simons Travel Award is part of The Obesity Society's commitment to young investigators in the field of obesity research. This award was established by The Obesity Society (TOS) Past President Barbara Rolls, PhD, FTOS, after losing her mother, Pat Simons, to obesity-related disease. This travel award is for students and postgraduate trainees who are TOS members, and selection is based on the scoring of an abstract submitted for presentation at ObesityWeek®. Selected recipients receive a stipend of $1000 to help offset the cost for attending ObesityWeek.

Alejandro Campos, MD

Boston Medical Center

Boston, Massachusetts

 

Diego Anazco, MD

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dallas, Texas

Jennifer Lambert, MD

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

 

John Long

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, Pennsylvania

 

Sepideh Sheybani, PhD

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dallas, Texas