2025 Health meets Food: the Culinary Medicine Conference Speakers
Friday
Barbara Kowlacyk, PhD
Milken Institute School of Public Health
Dr. Kowlacyk currently serves as Chair of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Science Board and has served on numerous other advisory committees, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Board of Scientific Counselors Food Safety Modernization Act Surveillance Working Group. She also co-authored a report by the National Academy of Sciences that became the blueprint for the Act, signed by President Barack Obama in 2011, that was the first major reform of food oversight at the FDA since 1938.
“For over 20 years, I have worked to put in place risk-informed, systems-based approaches to food safety. At GW, these efforts will expand to include nutrition security, which considers equitable access to safe, nutritious and affordable food that promotes health and well-being. Too often, efforts to improve food safety, nutrition and food security are siloed, leading to unintended consequences. This new Center will advance integrated approaches to addressing existing and emerging food safety and nutrition security problems in the U.S. and abroad.”
She received a B.A. in Mathematics from University of Dayton in 1991 and an M.A. in Applied Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1993. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Environmental Health (Epidemiology/Biostatistics) from the University of Cincinnati in 2011.
Christine Zurawski, MD
Piedmont Healthcare
Dr Zurawski graduated from the University of Michigan Honors College in 1986 with a degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology. She earned her medical degree at Emory University School of Medicine. She also completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine. Following her fellowship, Dr Zurawski served as a Research Associate in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine.
She began practicing at Piedmont Hospital in 1998 and, aside from the practice of general infectious diseases, she is actively involved in clinical research of new HIV therapies. Dr Zurawski is also the Medical Director for Infection Prevention and Antimicrobial Stewardship for Piedmont Healthcare. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases
Carla Ng, PhD
Dr. Carla Ng is an Associate Professor and Fulton C. Noss Faculty Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, with secondary appointments in Environmental and Occupational Health and in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.
She received her PhD in Chemical & Biological Engineering from Northwestern University in 2008. Her research focuses on the development of computational and in vitro approaches to evaluate the fate and effects of legacy and emerging chemicals in organisms and ecosystems, with a particular focus on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Through interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations her group works to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals in products and processes to protect public and ecosystem health.
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Saturday
Irene O. Aninye, PhD
Dr. Irene O. Aninye is the Chief Science Officer for the Society for Women’s Health Research, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing women’s health through science, policy, and education. Aninye steers SWHR’s portfolio of scientific programs to increase awareness and investment in research on biological sex differences and health conditions that disproportionately or uniquely affect women. She convenes expert working groups and meetings to identify strategies that address persistent gaps in women’s health care and research, translating recommendations into science-based and patient-centered policy solutions. Dr. Aninye has led the development of white papers, health care roadmaps, patient toolkits, clinical education materials, and calls to action for women’s cardiovascular health, autoimmune diseases, menopause, Alzheimer’s disease, HPV, and endometriosis, among other areas. Prior to SWHR, Aninye worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, specializing in research capacity building and evaluating STEM research and training programs for universities and funding agencies. With a PhD in Molecular and Integrative Physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Aninye’s research background is in endocrinology and metabolism – investigating sex steroid hormones and their receptor-mediated actions in development, reproduction, and disease. She has a passion to diversify the face of STEM and involvement of underrepresented groups in the sciences, providing scientific and leadership training across all career stages and serving on advisory boards for the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society, National Health Council, and World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Women’s Health.
Nisha Patel MD, MS, CCMS
Nisha Patel MD, MS, is a practicing, board-certified internal medicine and obesity medicine physician in San Francisco. She is the Director of the NAFLD Weight Management Program within the Advanced Organ Therapies department at CPMC. She is also a practicing transplant hospitalist. Dr. Patel completed medical school at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and Internal Medicine residency at the University of California in San Diego.
Dr. Patel is passionate about empowering her patients and others with the knowledge and tools to make practical, sustainable and life-long healthful eating habits. She has given several invited talks and live cooking demos to her physician colleagues, medical trainees and the general public on the importance of a healthy lifestyle as the foundation of healthcare. She readily integrates culinary medicine into the day to day care of her patients. She is passionate about improving cardiometabolic health outcomes and takes a special interest in advanced clinical lipidology.
Richard S. Legro, MD, FACOG
Penn State University
Dr. Richard Legro’s primary interests as a clinical and translational researcher have been in the field of reproductive endocrinology and human infertility. He has a long-standing interest in all aspects of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common endocrinopathy in women. His studies have focused on the diagnosis, treatment and genetic/environmental causes of PCOS, as well as on improving infertility diagnosis and treatment. He has worked with multiple clinical trial/research groups to develop novel and important investigator-initiated, multi-center trials to answer clinical questions about the role of lifestyle modification, medical agents and surgery to improve human reproductive function and treat infertility.
Through these studies, Dr. Legro has pioneered the tracking of outcomes in mothers from preconception through pregnancy to the postpartum period, and infants from birth onward. He has been the principal investigator on many National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded grants, including a lead investigator of the Reproductive Medicine Network for 20 years, and has been continuously funded by the NIH for 25 years.
Dr. Karen Lindsay
University of California Irvine
Dr. Karen Lindsay is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of California Irvine. She has clinical and research expertise in maternal and child health, nutrition-stress interactions, and mindful eating. Her current research focuses on the interplay between nutrition and psychological stress during pregnancy and the effects on gestational metabolism and pregnancy outcomes.
She is also an instructor of culinary medicine at the UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute where she teaches medical students and trainees. Recently, she initiated the Pre-pregnancy Whole Person Care program at UCI which incorporates culinary medicine into an integrative health model to support health, wellness, and fertility for couples planning a pregnancy.
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Sunday
Stacy Dean
Carbonell Family Executive Director
As Executive Director, Dean champions the institute’s mission to change the world through the power of food. She is a renowned national food policy leader with more than 30 years of experience in the government and non-profit sectors, dedicated to improving nutrition assistance for struggling Americans and tackling barriers ingrained within nutrition programs. Her distinguished career includes her most recent role as the Deputy Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, where she led the Administration’s work on federal nutrition programs. In this role, Dean was instrumental in strengthening the agency’s efforts on food and nutrition security as well as local food systems and resilience.
Prior to her role at USDA, Dean served as the Vice President for Food Assistance Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where she led their research and advocacy work on federal nutrition programs as well as other safety net programs. She has authored scores of papers and analyses on federal nutrition programs, testified before Congress and has been frequently quoted in the media, including the NYTimes, Politico and other publications.
Stacy holds a Master’s in Public Policy and a BA from the University of Michigan.
Bill Dietz, MD, PhD
George Washington University Global Food Institute
William (Bill) Dietz is the Director of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University. He is also the Sumner M. Redstone Center Chair. Dietz is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and serves as a consultant to the Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. He is the Director of the STOP Obesity Alliance at The George Washington University. He is Co-Chair of the Washington, DC Department of Health’s Diabesity Committee, a Commissioner on the Washington, DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s Healthy Youth & Schools Commission, and Chair of its Subcommittee on Physical Activity. Dietz is also Co-Chair of The Lancet Commission on Obesity.
From 1997-2012, Dietz was the 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 (CDC). Prior to his appointment to the CDC, he was a 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. He received his BA from Wesleyan University in 1966 and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970. After the completion of his residency at Upstate Medical Center, he received a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
He is the author of more than 200 publications in the scientific literature, and the editor of five books, including Clinical Obesity in Adults and Children (now in its 2nd edition), and Nutrition: What Every Parent Needs to Know.
