Foundations Course

Dr. Amanda Velazquez graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree in Nutrition, with honors, and received her MD from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She did internal medicine residency at Indiana University School of Medicine: Indianapolis and subsequently<br>completed the Nutrition and Obesity Medicine fellowship program at Boston University School of Medicine. She recently joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as the Director of Obesity Medicine in the department of surgery. Her research interests have focused on pharmacotherapy treatments of obesity, ways to enhance undergraduate and graduate medical education of obesity medicine and nutrition, as well as reducing weight bias and stigma among healthcare professionals.

Dan Bessesen is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center and Director of the University of Colorado Obesity Medicine Fellowship. He is a Past President of The Obesity Society.

Dr. Holly Lofton graduated from Medical College of Georgia with her MD in 2000. She then completed residency at Lenox Hill Hospital in Internal Medicine. She followed her passion to complete an Obesity Medicine and Nutrition fellowship at Geisinger Medical Center, where she later became faculty. She has been the Director of the Medical Weight Management at NYU Langone health since 2012 where she treats patients for weight conditions, directs the Obesity Medicine Fellowship, and conducts clinical research.

Dr. Saroja Voruganti, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Associate Director for Clinical Research services in Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Ph.D. in Nutrition from The University of Texas at Austin in 2005. She did her post-doctoral training in genetic epidemiology at Texas Biomedical Research Institute. Dr. Voruganti joined the faculty at NRI and Department of Nutrition at UNC Chapel Hill in 2013 and was promoted to Associate Professor in October 2019. Her research focuses on identifying genetic susceptibility to diseases such as obesity, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases, effect of genetic variation on nutrient metabolism and the effect of nutrients on gene expression related to these diseases. She has extensively investigated the interplay between nutritional and genetic factors influencing disease risk in ethnically diverse populations, especially underrepresented populations such as Mexican American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Parsi Zoroastrian and Hispanic populations.

Dr. Meera Shah is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Clinical Endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Her clinical interests are in the medical management of obesity and nutritional compilations after bariatric surgery, while her research focus is in the evolution of diabetes following gastric bypass surgery.

Dr. Robert L. Newton, Jr. is currently a Professor and Director of the Physical Activity and Ethnic Minority Health Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. His research examines the effect of community-based lifestyle interventions on the health of African Americans across the lifespan. A growing area of research is lifestyle interventions in older African Americans and its effects on cognitive function.

Dr. Jastreboff is an Obesity Medicine physician-scientist, board certified in adult Endocrinology and Metabolism, Pediatric Endocrinology, and Obesity Medicine. She is nationally and internationally recognized in the Obesity Medicine field for developing Clinical Practice Guidelines (2016) for The Comprehensive Care of Patients with Obesity (AACE/ACE), serving on the Board of Directors for the American Board of Obesity Medicine (ABOM), educating the next generation of Obesity Medicine physicians by teaching annually at Harvard Blackburn Treating Obesity course and the Columbia/Cornell Obesity course, and conducting cutting-edge clinical translational obesity research. Her research includes both large, multi-center clinical outcomes trials using anti-obesity medication as well as neuroimaging studies (fMRI and PET) examining the neurobiology underlying obesity and the mechanisms of anti-obesity medications. Recently, Dr. Jastreboff served as the lead author on the SURMOUNT-1 trial investigating novel GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist, tirzepatide, for the treatment of obesity (Jastreboff, et al., NEJM, 2022).A decade after completing her MD, Dr. Jastreboff decided to purse further education, completing her PhD at Yale University’s Investigative Medicine Program focused on translational and clinical investigation. Dr. Jastreboff’s research is supported by NIH/NIDDK (R01s) and industry funded global, multi-center clinical trials.Clinically, Dr. Jastreboff specializes in sophisticated use of anti-obesity medication combinations to help patients reach their weight and health goals.