David B. Allison PhD

David B. Allison is currently the director and Endowed Chair of the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston, Texas. He assumed this role after stepping down as dean of the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington in 2025, a position he had held since 2017. The USDA center at Baylor, one of only four human nutrition research centers in the nation housed at academic institutions, is recognized for its significant contributions to nutrition science, policy, and practice.

Allison is a highly accomplished researcher with over 600 scientific publications and more than 25 years of continuous NIH funding as a principal investigator. His areas of expertise include body fat, weight loss, obesity, weight cycling, longevity, statistical design and analysis, meta-analysis, causal inference, and promoting rigor, reproducibility, transparency, and trustworthiness in geroscience and nutrition research.

Allison has received numerous accolades, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (2006), the Friends of Albert (Mickey) Stunkard Lifetime Achievement Award (2021), the Harry V. Roberts Statistical Advocate of the Year Award (2018), the Hoebel Prize for Creativity (2022), and the 2023 Bodil M. Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award.