Penny Gordon-larsen PhD, FTOS, FAHA

Penny Gordon-Larsen is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition where much of her research focuses on issues related to ethnicity, disparities, and development of obesity over the lifecycle, with attention to pathways linking environment and behavior to cardiometabolic risk. She currently serves as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research where she oversees, develops, and supports UNC’s $1 billion research enterprise.

She is trained as a human biologist. Her portfolio ranges from molecular and genetic to environmental and societal-level factors that influence health. She served as President of The Obesity Society in 2015 and received the Eli Lilly Scientific Achievement Award in 2010 and the George A. Bray Founders Award in 2020, both from The Obesity Society. She served on the NIH Nutrition Research Thought Leaders Panel and as Chair for the NIH Kidney, Nutrition, Obesity, and Diabetes Study Section. From 2018 to 2022, she served as the Gillings School's associate dean for research where she led a schoolwide research program of approximately $200 million in research funding each year. She currently serves on the NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases advisory council and co-chairs the NIDDK's Strategic Plan Dissemination and Implementation Research Subgroup.

She is instrumental in the leadership of the COVID-19 research response at the Gillings School. Also, she leads the "Heterogeneity in Obesity Creativity Hub: Transdisciplinary Approaches for Precision Research and Treatment," a large, collaborative project with 27 faculty from 16 departments, six schools, and five centers and institutes. The project focuses on understanding why two people who consume the same diets and exercise equally can have very different susceptibility to weight gain, with the aim of developing treatment approaches that go far beyond the “one-size-fits-all” approach that is so common.