Thomas A. Wadden Award for Distinguished Mentorship
Leah Whigham PhD, FTOS
Associate Professor
Director, Center for Community Health Impact
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Created in 2015, the award honors a TOS member for distinguished mentorship of the Society’s early career investigators. The award is named for Professor Thomas A. Wadden, PhD, who mentored many individuals who went on to pursue successful careers in obesity research and clinical care.
TOPS Research Achievement Award
Daniel Drucker, MD
Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute
at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto
Professor
University of Toronto
The TOPS Research Achievement Award is for singular achievement or contribution to research in the field of obesity and made possible through an annual grant from the Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) Foundation.
Jules Hirsch Innovation Award
Pasquale Rummo, PhD
Associate Professor
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
The Innovation award recognizes an early-career investigator whose novel work will significantly impact the field of obesity.
Friends of Albert (Mickey) Stunkard
Lifetime Achievement Award
Samuel Klein, MD, FTOS
William H. Danforth Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Science
Washington University School of Medicine
The Friends of Albert (Mickey) Stunkard Lifetime Achievement Award is designed to recognize an individual who has made a commitment to the field of obesity in terms of scholarship, mentorship, and education.
Atkinson Stern Award for Distinguished Public Service
Richard Cleland, JD
Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
Adjunct Associate Professor
University of Indiana School of Public Health
This award was established by a donation from Dr. Thomas A. Wadden to recognize an individual or organization whose work has improved the lives of those affected by obesity, whether through research, public policy, or patient care.
The George L. Blackburn Award for Excellence in Obesity Medicine
Victoria Catenacci, MD
Associate Professor
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Anschutz Health and Wellness Center
The award is funded by the George L. Blackburn Foundation for Nutritional Medicine, (GLBFNM ) in honor of George L. Blackburn, MD, PhD, whose long and distinguished career spanned nutrition, and metabolism and obesity, and whose clinical teaching focused on the important role of nutrition in maintaining health and preventing disease. The award recognizes the outstanding contribution of an exceptional mid-career individual in the field who is making significant and innovative contributions to Obesity Medicine in the spirit of the transformational contributions made by Dr. Blackburn during his career.
The George A. Bray Founders Award
Jeffrey Zigman, MD, PhD, FTOS
Professor
UT Southwestern Medical Center
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.
The George A. Bray Doctoral Dissertation Award
Kaja Falkenhain, PhD
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
The award recognizes one student for their doctoral dissertation, which is judged on the significance, scope, innovation, and scientific methodology in the field of obesity.
The George A. Bray Master’s Thesis Award
Amanda Finn, MS
PhD Candidate
University of Alabama at Birmingham
The award recognizes one student for their master’s thesis, which is judged on the significance, scope, innovation, and scientific methodology in the field of obesity.
TBA
TBA
Ethan Sims Young Investigator Award
The Ethan Sims Young Investigator Award was established in honor of Ethan Sims, an early pioneer in obesity research, and recognizes excellence in research by young investigators.
Five semifinalists are selected based on their submitted abstracts and are invited to make a presentation during ObesityWeek®. Two recipients are selected based on their oral presentations, one for Basic Science and the other for Clinical Research.
The Oded Bar-Or Award
Deanna Hoelscher, PhD
Campus Dean, UTHealth School of Public Health Austin Campus
John P. McGovern Professor in Health Promotion
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
The Oded Bar-Or Award was established in 2007 to honor Oded Bar-Or, a pioneer in children’s health, by the Pediatric Obesity Section of TOS. This award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to basic and applied pediatric obesity research that have resulted in major advances in the scientific understanding of etiology, prevention, and treatment of pediatric obesity.
The Clinician of the Year Award
W. Scott Butsch, MD, FTOS
Cleveland Clinic Lerner
College of Medicine
The Clinician of the Year Award was founded in 2015 by the Clinical Management of Obesity Section of The Obesity Society. This award signifies excellence in the practice of obesity medicine and distinguishes a physician as having achieved a high level of competency and understanding in obesity care.
The Presidential Medal of Distinction
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; having made a 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
“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. Fernández obtained his Ph.D. 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 post-doctoral 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
“In recognition of your groundbreaking research to identify distinct subtypes of obesity and eating disorders across the lifespan and advancing the goal of precision prevention and treatment, as well as for your service to The Obesity Society.”
Dr. 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 co-founder 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, 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, 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
Stadtman Investigator
The National Institutes of Health
“In recognition of your groundbreaking research on the impact of social determinants of health on obesity and cardiovascular risk, your dedicated service in advancing health equity, as well as for your service to The Obesity Society.”
Tiffany Powell-Wiley graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During medical school, she spent a year at the 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 internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and cardiology fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Powell-Wiley also served for one 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 2011-2014, 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.