Principal Investigator

Please donate in memory of our dear friend and mentor:

Society for the Study of Ingestive Behaviors (SSIB) Award Fund

Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

I am a Regents’ Professor of Biology, an Associate member of the Neuroscience Institute, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology. I teach Functional Human Neuroanatomy and Survival Skills in Academia (successful grant and manuscript writing, oral presentations) to graduate students in the Biology and Psychology Departments and Neuroscience Institute.

I am interested in the sympathetic and sensory nervous system innervation of white and brown fat, brown fat thermogenesis, obesity reversal, peptidergic control of appetitive ingestive behaviors (foraging and hoarding) and photoperiodism/melatonin. The obesity work has been funded by a National Institutes of Health grant for 27 consecutive years and recently renewed for the next 10 years via a NIDDK MERIT Award, well as by numerous other National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation grants including a National Institutes of Health grant to study brain mechanisms of food acquisition and storage as it relates to obesity.

I am an Associate Editor for Obesity and Academic Editor for PLoSOne. I am on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Neuroendocrinology, the Journal of Biological Rhythms, and the International Journal of Obesity. I also perform ad hoc reviews of manuscripts for over 90 additional different journals.

I have been an impaneled member of National Institutes of Health Initial Review Group (Neuroendocrinology, Neuroimmunology and Behavior) for 6 years and serve as an ad hoc reviewer for other National Institutes of Health Initial Review and Special Emphasis grant review panels, as well as doing so for the National Science Foundation, Israel Science Foundation, Medical Research Council of Canada, Dutch Diabetes Foundation, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Research Grants Council of Singapore, and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.

In addition to over 50 invited addresses and other special talks at international science meetings including an Alfred Nobel Foundation symposium on the adipocyte, I have given more than 70 invited seminars at US and international universities.

I was previously awarded a National Institutes of Health New Investigator Award, National Institutes of Mental Health ADAMHA Research Scientist Development Award Level II, Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award at Georgia State University, Outstanding Faculty Scholarship Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University and most recently a National Institutes of Health MERIT Award.

I have published ~150 primary research papers and ~45 reviews/book chapters on obesity & ingestive behaviors and am a past President and Board Member of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, and Program Committee Member for The Obesity Society.

I am a music enthusiast, especially jazz and classic rock and play the alto saxophone.

View my publications on PUBMED