Dr. Barbara Hansen is the Director of the Obesity, Diabetes and Aging Research Center of the Morsani College of Medicine and Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of South Florida, Tampa. Her research has addressed the physiological, cellular, and molecular defects underlying the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes mellitus and their prevention. She has over 200 publications. These include key advances in understanding how nutrient composition affects appetite regulation and body composition, and characterizing the prodrome to overt Type 2 Diabetes, including identifying risk factors and targets for its prevention. She also discovered and characterized the secretory patterns of the pancreas and has shown their disruption in the period preceding overt type 2 diabetes. Her popular book, written for the American Diabetes Association, remains today a leading publication for lay people: "The Commonsense Guide to Weight Loss for People with Diabetes", 1999, and it has received the National Health Information Award for content, creativity, and overall excellence and the Medical Book Award from the American Medical Writers Association. Dr. Hansen was the first President of The Obesity Society (USA) and also served as the first President of the International Association for the Study of Obesity (World Obesity Federation). She has further served as President of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition/ASN. Dr. Hansen is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (NAM, l981-present) and is past Chair of the NAM Section on Neurobiology, Physiology, and Pharmacology, and past chair of the Nutrition, Obesity and Diabetes Group of the NAM. She has served in multiple leadership roles within the National Academy of Medicine, chaired many committees and Advisory groups and served as reviewer on multiple scientific reports of the NAM/National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Hansen has been a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health, the NIH Nutrition Study Section, and of many other NIH advisory groups, as well as the FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Disease Drug Advisory Panel (2012 to present). Her laboratory has been continuously supported by NIH for more than 30 years, and additionally, has been supported by the pharmaceutical and food industries. She has received many honors including the E.V. McCollum Award of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, the George Bray Founder's Award from the Obesity Society, and charter member of the National Academy of Inventors. In 2019, Dr. Hansen was awarded the Presidential Medal by The Obesity Society. She has been elected a Fellow of multiple professional/scientific societies and is currently active in all of the following, including The Obesity Society (FTOS), the American Society for Nutrition (FASN), the American Heart Association (FAHA), American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS), and The National Academy of Inventors (FNAI, charter member/fellow) and was elected an Inaugural Fellow of the American Physiological Society (FAPS). Dr. Hansen has received Outstanding Faculty Awards from the University of South Florida twice in the past 5 years. She has a Ph.D. in Physiology and Psychology from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.