Empowering people with the truth about food

Dr. Ashley Gearhardt is a Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Clinical Science area at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Yale University with training on the underpinnings of both excess food and alcohol consumption. Dr. Gearhardt currently investigates the contribution of reward dysfunction (e.g., craving, liking) to eating-related problems across the lifespan. She uses a multi-method approach to explore the neurobiological, psychological, and behavioral factors that contribute to problematic eating behavior. Dr. Gearhardt also investigates the role of addictive processes in compulsive overeating and is the Director of the Food Addiction Science and Treatment Laboratory. She created the Yale Food Addiction Scale, which has been cited over 1000 times and has been translated into over a dozen languages. Her research has received funding from the National Institute of Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Dohmen Company Foundation, the American Heart Association, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and has been identified as one of the world’s top 2% of scientists in the field of psychology. Her research has been featured on media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, PBS, the Today Show, and Time Magazine. She has testified at both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and to the California State Assembly on the scientific evidence demonstrating parallels between ultra-processed foods and addictive substances.

Carlos A. Monteiro, MD, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, where he founded the USP Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition (CESHN) in 1990. Under his leadership, the USP CESHN developed and refined the ultra-processed food (UPF) construct and the Nova classification system that defines UPFs, now used worldwide in hundreds of studies and incorporated into the national dietary guidelines of more than 10 countries.

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Monteiro has served WHO, PAHO, UNICEF, FAO, and other organizations, including as a member of WHO’s Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group (2010–2023). He has authored more than 300 publications, with over 30,000 citations (Web of Science), and has ranked among the top 1% most cited researchers in his field from 2019 to 2025.

Dr. Cindy Leung is a nutrition epidemiologist whose research focuses on understanding the health impacts of food insecurity and their underlying mechanisms across the life course. The ultimate goal of her research is to inform the development of policies and programs that can better promote food security, high diet quality, and health equity in structurally marginalized populations. She holds a BA and MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, and a ScD in nutrition and epidemiology from Harvard.

Colleen L. Barry is a nationally and internationally recognized health policy research scholar and educator and currently serves as the Inaugural Dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.  Dean Barry’s research focuses on studying the effects of public policies on health outcomes and understanding how persuasive communication can influence public opinion on policies to address mental health, addiction, food systems, obesity, and gun violence.  She is the founding director of the Cornell Health Policy Center, a collaboration between the Brooks School of Public Policy and Weill Cornell Medicine. She has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications in leading policy, public health, and medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, American Journal of Public Health, and Health Affairs and has led numerous large-scale research studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and numerous health-oriented foundations. Dean Barry is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Social Insurance. She co-chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders and served as Vice President for the Association of Public Policy and Management. She is currently Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Sandy Hook Promise, a national organization dedicated to protecting children from gun violence.  As Founding Dean, Dr. Barry has an influential role in building Cornell’s newest school into one of international prominence, launching academic programs and partnerships across campuses, and developing a long-term vision and strategic priorities to position the Brooks School to improve people’s lives through public policy.

Heejin Lee, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She received her PhD in Nutrition from Seoul National University. Her research focuses on how diet quality, ultra-processed food consumption, and food insecurity shape cognitive health and aging outcomes, with the aim of identifying factors that support healthy aging.

Jeff Niederdeppe is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. He is a Founding Co-Director of the Collaborative on Media and Messaging (COMM) for Health and Social Policy and an Associate Director of the Cornell Health Policy Center (CHPC). His research examines the content and effects of mass media campaigns, strategic messages, and news coverage in shaping health behavior and social policy. He is committed to producing, supporting, and disseminating innovative and rigorous research to support efforts to achieve health equity. He has published more than 220 peer-reviewed articles in communication, public health, health policy, and medicine journals, and his work has been funded in recent years by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

He was elected as a Fellow of the International Communication Association in 2022, received the CALS Research and Extension Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Science and Public Policy in 2019, the Early Career Award in 2016 from the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section of the American Public Health Association, and the Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication Award in 2014 from the Kentucky Conference on Health Communication. He serves on the editorial boards for seven journals in communication and public health.

Kelly Brownell is Dean Emeritus of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, where he is also Robert L. Flowers Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Director Emeritus of the World Food Policy Center at Duke University.

In 2006 Time magazine listed Kelly Brownell among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” in its special Time 100 issue featuring those “.. whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.” Brownell was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) in 2006 and has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, Graduate Mentoring Award from Yale, the James McKeen Cattell Award from the New York Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Purdue University, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Rutgers University, and the Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology from the American Psychological Association.

Prior to joining the faculty at Duke, Brownell was at Yale University where he was the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Co-Founder and Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. While at Yale he served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Head of Silliman College.

Dr. Brownell has published 15 books and more than 350 scientific articles and chapters. He has served as President of several national organizations, including the Society of Behavioral Medicine, Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, and the Division of Health Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

Dr. Brownell has advised the White House, members of congress, governors, state attorneys general. world health and nutrition organizations, and media leaders on issues of nutrition, obesity, and public policy.  He was cited as a “moral entrepreneur” with special influence on public discourse in a history of the obesity field and was cited by Time magazine as a leading “warrior” in the area of nutrition and public policy.

Laura A. Schmidt PhD is a public health sociologist who investigates the root causes of chronic disease in commercial products, including ultra-processed foods, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Her research has uncovered close ties between the tobacco and ultra-processed food industries, helping us to rethink food from an addiction standpoint.  She leads the UCSF Food Policy Lab, which is funded by the US National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Agriculture to innovate new ways to prevent chronic disease by changing food environments.

Lindsey Smith Taillie is a nutrition epidemiologist whose work focuses on designing and evaluating food policies to support healthier and more sustainable diets across the globe. She uses datasets on the food supply, food marketing, food prices, purchases, and dietary intake to evaluate the impact of a variety of laws, including sugary drinks and ultraprocessed foods taxes, restrictions on unhealthy food marketing to kids, food assistance programs, and front-of-package food labels. Dr. Taillie is co-director of the Global Food Research Program, and currently co-leads a large multi-country project to inform and evaluate an array of healthy food policies around the world, with a major focus in Latin America, including Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Mexico. For example, one recent project involved evaluating the impact of Chile’s first-of-their kind regulations on warning labels, marketing restrictions, and school sales bans on unhealthy foods.

Marion Nestle is a scientist, teacher, author, and one of the country’s most respected voices on food, nutrition, and public health. As the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, she has spent decades helping people understand how food companies, marketing, and politics shape what we eat. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of numerous prize-winning books such as Food Politics and What to Eat Now, and writes regularly at FoodPolitics.com.

Passionate about making food systems healthier, more honest, and easier to navigate, she believes people deserve clear information and food environments that support health. Through her writing, teaching, and public commentary, she continues to help people see the larger forces behind everyday food choices.

Dr. Tera Fazzino is Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the University of Kansas (KU). Dr. Fazzino's research program uses insights and methods from experimental and clinical psychology to examine the addictive properties of hyper-palatable and ultra-processed foods, and to characterize their public health harms. She also conducts research using behavioral economics to understand risky intake behaviors (e.g., binge eating, risky alcohol use) and to prevent the development of clinical disorders. She has secured funding from three federal US agencies to support her work: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Her research has contributed to areas including clinical science, public health, and obesity prevention.