George A. Bray MD, MACP, MACE

Dr. George Bray graduated summa cum laude in 1953, Dr. George Bray entered Harvard Medical School where he graduated magna cum laude in 1957. His internship at the Osler Service of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD was followed by a Research Associateship at NIH. After completing his training in internal medicine and endocrinology residency at the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, Dr. Bray spent a year at the National Institute for Medical Research in London followed by further training in endocrinology at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. In 1970, after 8 years in Boston, Bray accepted a position as Director of the Clinical Research Center at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center. He organized the First Fogarty International Center Conference on Obesity in 1972 and Chaired the Second International Congress on Obesity held in Washington DC in 1977.

In 1989, Dr. Bray became the first Executive Director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He oversaw the growth of the facility from 25 employees and a million-dollar budget to a flourishing research center with over 70 scientists, 350 employees, and an annual budget of nearly $ 20 million.

Dr. Bray is now a Boyd (University) Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a Professor of Medicine at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans. He is the Principal Investigator for the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study and the Look AHEAD study, 2 multi-center NIH-funded clinical trials. He is a Master in the American College of Physicians and a Master of the American College of Endocrinology. He is a member of numerous professional societies including The Obesity Society, The Endocrine Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the American Physiological Society. In 1982 he founded the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO now The Obesity Society), and he was the founding editor of Obesity Research, as well as co-founder of the International Journal of Obesity and the founding editor of Endocrine Practice.