Kelly Brownell is Robert L. Flowers Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Director Emeritus of the World Food Policy Center at Duke University. From 2013-2018 he served as Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke. Prior to joining the faculty at Duke, Brownell was at Yale University where he was the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. While at Yale he served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Head of Silliman College. Brownell was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine and was listed by Time magazine among “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” in its special Time 100 issue featuring those “.. whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.”

Dr. Lisa Neff joined Eli Lilly and Company in August 2021 and serves as an Executive Director in Global Medical Affairs. Prior to joining Lilly, Dr. Neff was an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology at Northwestern University in Chicago, where she conducted clinical research, treated patients with obesity, diabetes and related disorders, and served as teaching faculty for medical trainees. She is a board-certified Obesity Medicine physician and Endocrinologist with over two decades of clinical experience in obesity medicine, endocrinology, and clinical nutrition, as well as expertise in clinical research related to obesity and nutrition.

Lorena Drago is a registered dietitian, speaker, author, consultant and certified diabetes care and educator specialist. Lorena specializes in the multicultural aspects of diabetes self-management education and is an expert in developing culturally and ethnically oriented nutrition and diabetes education materials. She founded Hispanic Foodways which received the New York City Small Business Award in 2006. She developed the Nutriportion™ Measuring Cups that has the calorie and carbohydrate amounts of common foods embossed on each cup and the Nutriportion™ Hispanic Food Cards that have pictures and nutrition composition of common Hispanic foods. Lorena served on the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists board of directors from 2006 to 2010, Chair for Latinos and Hispanics in Dietetics and Nutrition. She was Past President of the Metropolitan New York Association of Diabetes Educators in 2004. Lorena won the Diabetic Living People’s Choice Award in 2012, the Latinos & Hispanics in Dietetics and Nutrition Trinko Award in 2016, and the Diabetes Educator of the Year in 2022.

John M. Jakicic, PhD is a Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Department of Internal Medicine. He has an interdisciplinary research program that examines lifestyle approaches to the prevention and treatment of chronic health conditions, with a particular focus on the role of increased physical activity and reduced sedentary behavior on these outcomes. Central to this research has been a focus on the prevention and treatment of obesity, and this has more recent application to medical treatments for obesity that include metabolic and bariatric surgery and contemporary anti-obesity medications. Dr. Jakicic has served on numerous national committees which included his appointment by the US Department of Health and Human Services to the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee. He authored the 2024 American College of Sport Medicine’s Consensus paper and has contributed to other consensus papers and clinical guidelines for the prevention and treatment of obesity.