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IN MEMORIAM

Judith S. Stern, PhD

Judith Stern, PhD, distinguished professor emerita of nutrition and internal medicine at University of California, Davis, died in May 2019. She was very proud of and loved by her graduate students, postdocs, her laboratory staff, and collaborators. In addition to her many scientific contributions, particularly in the area of obesity, she also devoted a good deal of time to communicating scientific findings to the public and to public service. Judy was a long-time Editorial Board Member of Nutrition Today, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the ASN and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She was a founder of and later president of both The Obesity Society and the North American Association for the Study of Obesity. She also served as President of the American Society of Clinical Nutrition, the predecessor of the ASN. Those who had the privilege of knowing her well know how proud she also was of her early achievements in 4H as a schoolgirl and, later in life, playing musical instruments with her sister Tia. Judy loved to have a good time and was always ready for a party or a fine restaurant meal, sometimes consisting only of appetizers, sometimes starting with dessert, but always with wine. She was particularly proud of her husband Dick's scientific work and his second career in photography. We extend our condolences to her devoted husband Dr Richard Stern, her son Daniel, her family, and her many friends and colleagues.

 

Leann Birch, PhD

We note with sadness the death of Leann L. Birch, PhD, long-time faculty member at the Pennsylvania State University and later at the University of Georgia, who was famous for her studies of children's eating habits. She was known to many as the nutrition scientist who knew how to get a child to eat peas, based on her studies of introducing foods to young infants and children. The secret was introducing the food many times without forcing the child to eat or trying to bribe them by promising dessert. Her children both testified that she practiced what she preached at home and that they could try foods and reject them with no problems from their parents. After an early faculty appointment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she moved to Penn State, where she taught for many years and directed the Center for Childhood Obesity Research. She was a great supporter of encouraging children to follow their own hunger signals rather than simply focusing on insisting that they finish everything, eat quickly, and eat even when they were not hungry. She also showed that left to their own devices children ate a good deal of some days and less on others, but ended up doing well. Her last studies included investigating the causes and remedies for crying. Nutrition Today extends our sympathy to her husband, Karl Newell, and her son and daughter.

 

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

American Society for Nutrition Fellows Announced

Dr Robert M. Russell, chair of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) Foundation and member of the Nutrition Today Editorial Board, presided at the luncheon in honor of the ASN Class of 2019 Fellows at the ASN annual meeting in Baltimore this June. They are the following:

 

Michele R. Forman, PhD, Purdue University. Dr Forman is the distinguished professor and head of the Department of Nutrition Science at Purdue. Her career began with a study of low birth weight and now focuses on the developmental origins of chronic disease. She has worked with cohorts here and abroad on these topics.

 

Douglas Heimburger, MD, Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health. Dr Heimburger is professor and associate director for Education and Training at Vanderbilt University and a long-time well-known medical educator who has taught both here and abroad. His research currently focuses on nutritional influences on human immunodeficiency virus treatment and chronic disease outcomes. Doug served on the faculty at the University of Alabama Medical School before coming to Vanderbilt and continues to be an advocate for nutrition as a part of medical education.

 

Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD, Boston University School of Medicine. Mike Holick is one of the best known researchers in the world on vitamin D with more than 400 articles on the topic. He currently teaches and practices medicine at Boston University. His work has been key to understanding the role of vitamin D and its many health effects.

 

Gordon L. Jensen, MD, PhD, University of Vermont. Gordon, an editorial board member of Nutrition Today, is the senior associate dean for research and professor of medicine and nutrition at the Larner College of Medicine of the University of Vermont. He is best known for his work in medical education, obesity and aging, and diagnostic classification for clinical malnutrition syndromes. He previously served on the faculty of Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he directed the Center for Human Nutrition, and later on the faculty of Pennsylvania State University. He is a past president of the ASN and also of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. In addition, he served 2 terms on the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine and has published extensively.

 

Nancy Krebs, MD, MS, University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr Krebs is professor of pediatrics and head of the Section of Nutrition in that department. Her work involved studies of both impaired and excessive growth of infants and young children both here in the United States and internationally. She is probably best known for her many elegant studies of zinc metabolism in infants and children, but she has also published widely on the bioactive components of human milk. Also, her studies of appropriate complementary food choices of infants and toddlers are well known. She has also been active in many committees of the ASN and the Academy of Pediatrics.

 

Shiriki Kumanyika, PhD, MPH, Drexel University. Dr Kumanyika is now a professor in the Dornsife School of Public health at Drexel University. She served for many years as professor at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, where she is now a professor emerita. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and chairs the Food and Nutrition Board. Her research has focused on strategies to reduce obesity and other nutrition related chronic disease risk factors, with a focus on health equity.

 

Simin Nikbin Meydani, DVM, PhD, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. Simin Meydani is the vice provost of research at Tufts University and directs the immunology laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. She is also a professor there at the Friedman School of Nutrition. She is best known for her many studies on nutrition and immunology and other age-related diseases. She has been active in many societies, serving as president of ASN in 2014-2015 and as president of the American Aging Association in 2005.

 

Alanna Moshfegh, MS, RD, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. Alanna Moshfegh's entire career has been devoted to federal government service, and her contributions to the nutritional health of the nation are myriad. She is the research leader of the food surveys research group at the US Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center where she leads staff in planning and directing research in monitoring food consumption behavior and the nutritional adequacy of American diets. Her work is essential for What We Eat in America, the dietary interview component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Under her tenure, she has directed the development of the US Department of Agriculture's automated multiple-pass method, a 5-step 24-hour recall system used in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. She has published extensively on nutrition monitoring, food consumption and dietary status.

 

Denise M. Ney, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Former chair and professor of the Department of Nutrition at the University of Wisconsin, she is well known as a teacher and researcher. Dr Ney is a nutritional gastrointestinal physiologist with a special interest on the neuroendocrine regulation of intestinal adaptation and the nutritional management of phenylketonuria, an inborn error of metabolism. Her work was key to understanding the actions of glucagon-like peptide 2, which helps to mediate intestinal adaptive growth and which led to a drug analog for successfully treating human short bowel syndrome during the transition from parenteral to enteral nutrition. Her work also led to a medical food using glycomacropeptide for those afflicted with PKU that is devoid of phenylalanine.

 

Andrew Prentice, PhD, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr Prentice is well known for his work in Gambia doing intervention studies in pregnancy and lactation and work on the use of stable isotope methods for assessing breastmilk intake and energy expenditure in free living people. He has also done work on whole-body calorimetry. Most recently, working at the London School of Hygiene, he is focusing on diet and disease in low-income countries, particularly the associations between iron, infection, and anemia. He is also a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the United Kingdom.

 

Jon Story, PhD, Purdue University. Dr Story has served at Purdue for nearly half a century, as a professor in the Department of Nutrition and also senior associate dean of the graduate school for a decade and a half. His work includes extensive studies of the regulation of cholesterol and bile acid metabolism. He has also been named to Purdue's Book of Great Teachers and is very active in translational research, working with institutions of higher education in Indiana.