DONNA RYAN

Donna Ryan MD is Professor Emerita at Pennington Biomedical in Baton Rouge, LA, USA, where she oversaw Clinical Research for 25 years. Her research interests included lifestyle intervention and diet for weight loss, and she was an investigator on NIH studies including POUNDS Lost, Look AHEAD, DPP, and DASH. She was Principal Investigator for the US Department of Defence for a series of awards which targeted military nutrition approaches to improve soldier readiness and performance. A particular research interest was improving primary care management of obesity and evaluating commercial approaches to weight management. She also studies the use of medications and devices to aid weight management. She was President of The Obesity Society and was designated Master of Obesity Medicine by the American Board of Obesity Medicine. She received The Obesity Society’s George Bray Founder’s Award (2013) and the George Blackburn Award (2019), was named Obesity Action Coalition Health Care Provider of the Year (2017) and was invited to give the Francisco Balmis Lecture (2019).