Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease

Katherine L. Tucker, PhD, is Professor of Nutritional Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Population Health at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. From 1989–2009, she was a research scientist at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. She earned her PhD from Cornell University and her BSc from the University of Connecticut, both in nutritional sciences. Her research focuses on dietary intake, metabolism, and chronic disease (osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease, and cognitive decline) in diverse populations, including as principal investigator of the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study, a longitudinal cohort. She is a past Chair of the Nutritional Sciences Council, past board member of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), and served two terms on the Food and Nutrition Board of the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies. She recently completed a 10-year term as Editor-in Chief of Advances in Nutrition, the ASN international review journal; prior to that she was an associate editor for The Journal of Nutrition. She is a Fellow of the ASN, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, and the Gerontological Society of America. Christopher P. Duggan, MD, MPH, earned his BA from Dartmouth College, his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his MPH from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He is a pediatric gastroenterologist and nutrition physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he directs the Center for Nutrition and is Medical Director of the Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation. His research interests are in maternal and child health in low-resource settings as well as diarrheal disease and undernutrition. He is the Samuel Meltzer Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of Nutrition at Harvard Medical School, and a Professor in the Departments of Nutrition and Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is the course cofounder of the Advanced Integrated Science Course at Harvard Medical School “Nutrition, Metabolism and Lifestyle Medicine.” Since 2019, he has been Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Gordon L. Jensen, MD, PhD, became Senior Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Medicine and Nutrition at the Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont in 2016. He retired with Emeritus recognition in 2022. From 2007–2015, he was Professor and Head of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State University and Professor of Medicine at the Penn State College of Medicine. From 1998–2007, he was Director of the Center for Human Nutrition and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He earned his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College and his PhD in nutritional biochemistry from Cornell University. He completed residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in clinical nutrition at New England Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He is a past-president of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), a past-president of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), and a past-chair of the Association of Nutrition Programs and Departments. He served two terms on the Food and Nutrition Board of the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies. His research interests have focused on the impact of nutritional status on health and functional outcomes in older persons. His contributions have been recognized with the 2014 Jonathan Rhoads Lecture, ASPEN’s most prestigious award, his election to honorary membership in the Academy and Nutrition and Dietetics, and his selection as a fellow in both ASPEN and ASN. Karen E. Peterson, ScD, is the Stanley M. Garn Collegiate Professor and inaugural Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she also holds joint appointments as Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Professor of Global Public Health. She earned her ScD in Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and BA in Foods and Nutrition from the University of Utah. Her research focuses on interactions of toxicants and diet on growth, maturation and cardiometabolic risk across the life course and the evaluation of interventions addressing lifestyle behaviors related to obesity and chronic conditions. Since 2010, she has served as Associate Director of the Michigan Nutrition and Obesity Research Center. She is an Associate Editor of Pediatric Obesity. She teaches courses on physical growth and maturation and on the evaluation of public health nutrition programs.