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Dr. Michael Carlos received his medical degree and completed his internal medicine residency at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He completed his cardiology training at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI and a fellowship in cardiac and peripheral interventions at the Cardiovascular Institute of the South in Houma, LA. His interest is in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and the long-term care of the cardiac patient

Laura Davisson, MD, MPH, FACP, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at West Virginia University (WVU). She received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and earned her medical degree and MPH from WVU. Dr. Davisson completed an internal medicine residency at WVU and served as Chief Resident. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Obesity Medicine. She certified in Obesity Medicine because of her interest in prevention and the role of obesity in many chronic medical conditions she treats as an internist.

Dr. Davisson directs WVU Medicine’s Medical Weight Management Program, which provides team-based, patient-centered care. The clinic’s metabolic disease treatment is important in WV which has one of the highest rates of obesity. Dr. Davisson is active in medical education. The clinic serves as a training site for students, residents, and fellows, and is the basis of the medical student weight bias curriculum. As Associate Program Director, Dr. Davisson directs medicine resident quality improvement activities. Dr. Davisson is serving a four-year term on the American College of Physicians (ACP) Board of Governors as the WV Chapter Governor until April 2023. She enjoys participating in outreach activities, speaking and writing on various health topics, and advocating for the prevention and treatment of obesity.

Dr. Hussein Elbadawi is an endocrinologist in the department of internal medicine in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University. Dr. Elbadawi completed an internal medicine residency at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington Massachusetts followed by a combined clinical and translational fellowship at Wayne State University in Endocrinology, Diabetes & metabolism. He then joined the faculty as the assistant program director of the endocrinology fellowship program. He is board certified in internal medicine and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He is also a diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine as well as a certified clinical densitometrist.

He is a clinical assistant professor of medicine and very involved in medical education. He is very passionate about educating the next generation of health care providers about obesity and related metabolic diseases. He has been instrumental in modifying the medical school curriculum to include obesity as a topic introduced early in physiology and pathophysiology courses. He started the Obesity & lipids clinic in the division of endocrinology to train interested residents and fellows to serve a unique underserved obese patient population.

He is affiliated with the Detroit Medical Center, the Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Karmanos Cancer Institute where he was recognized as an obesity medicine specialist in addition to his role as an endocrinologist.

Dr. Elbadawi’s research activity revolves around brown adipose tissue and its response to hormones and catecholamines. He is a member of the Obesity Society, The Endocrine Society, The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and The American Thyroid Association. He actively participates in local and institutional programs aiming at raising awareness of local community members to envision obesity as a disease.

Dr. Marcus “Chris” Griffith is a general adult, child and adolescent psychiatrist and previously owned and operated several successful medical practices in Henry County, Georgia for twenty years. He is currently employed by The Southeastern Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta, Georgia and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at both Morehouse and Emory University Schools of Medicine. He is actively involved with Kaiser Permanente of Georgia’s Bariatric and Obesity Care Teams, Highly Reliable Training, Co-lead for the Behavioral Health UBT and Quality Review Management services.

Dr. Griffith has given over 1000 lectures on the local, state, and national levels. He has delivered presentations for The National Football League, Turner Broadcasting Corporation, Georgia Institute of Technology, National Medical Association, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and multiple academic institutions. Additionally he has provided expert opinion to The Food and Drug Administration, the United States House of Representatives, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Griffith was previously a department chair at Southern Regional Medical Center and has served on the advisory boards for several local and national organizations.

He has been the recipient of The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award presented by the City of Seaside and the California State Legislature (2011 & 2013); The E.Y. Williams Distinguished Scholar Award by The National Medical Association, and The Pinnacle Award from Live Healthy & Thrive Youth. In 2013 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Georgia State Medical Association and The Southeast Permanente Medical Group Community Service Award. Additionally, he and his wife, Dr. Jeana Griffith, have recently completed a book. Titled The Tale of Two Athletes-The Story of Jumper and The Thumper, it is a true, inspirational story based upon a lifelong friendship that was turned into a children’s book to combat the obesity epidemic.

In her current general endocrinology practice, she cares for patients with diabetes, obesity, metabolic bone and calcium disorders, hypogonadism, thyroid, pituitary and adrenal disorders. Prior to her current professional role, she enjoyed working with and teaching endocrinology fellows while on faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

Dr. Hawkins completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia and received her medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.  She completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Jamie Kane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine and serves as the section chief of Obesity Medicine as well as the director for Northwell Health’s Center for Weight Management. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and is a diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine.  He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and an M.D. at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine prior to completing his residency training in Internal Medicine at Yale University.
Dr. Kane has previously held faculty positions at Yale University and New York University.  He has ten years of clinical expertise in both university and private practice settings.  He has long been passionate about chronic disease prevention and strongly believes individuals and communities, with the help of caring trained professionals, can make powerful changes critical to overall health and well-being.

Bio coming soon.

Dr Jessica Kobleur is the Medical Director of a pediatric multidisciplinary weight management program, the Gulfstream Children’s Wellness Clinic at Memorial Health University Hospital in Savannah, Georgia. She is also a practicing general pediatrician at the hospital’s outpatient center University Pediatrics. Dr. Kobleur teaches students and residents about the implications and management of childhood obesity. She and her Wellness Team provide teaching and act as a resource for local community pediatricians, schools and community programs. Dr. Kobleur graduated medical school and completed residency at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia. She is board certified in pediatric medicine and has been a diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine since 2016.

Dr. Rekha B. Kumar currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Attending Endocrinologist at the Weill Cornell Medical College and specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of various Endocrinology disorders, including obesity/weight management, thyroid disorders (hypo- and hyperthyroidism, thyroid disease in pregnancy), as well as metabolic bone disease (osteoporosis and osteopenia).

Dr. Kumar completed her undergraduate studies at Duke University then received her masters degree in Physiology from Georgetown University. She continued on to receive her M.D. from New York Medical College and completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill-Cornell Medical College. Dr. Kumar obtained her clinical fellowship in the combined Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism program at the Weill-Cornell Medical College/New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Kumar gained her clinical and research focus in obesity medicine/weight management under the mentorship of Dr. Louis Aronne, a world renowned obesity physician whom she practices with at 1165 York Ave. Dr. Kumar has traveled abroad to India, China, and Tanzania in order to both learn and teach medicine to others.

Dr Liang completed her Internal Medicine residency and Gastroenterology fellowship at McGill University.  She went on to do research fellowships in Hepatology at the University of Zurich and in Nutrition at the University of Toronto. She has a busy clinical gastroenterology and obesity medicine practice and is an active staff physician at North York General Hospital in Toronto. She is also a lecturer at the University of Toronto and is a diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine

Dr. Holly Lofton started her personal journey of weight loss as a pre-teen when she modified her lifestyle to improve her diet and became more active in sports. She continued to pursue her interest in weight management in her college years at Boston University when she trained as an aerobics instructor. Even during her regimented medical school years at the Medical College of Georgia, she enlisted patients and fellow classmates to lead more active lifestyles and to use nutrition to improve their overall health.

Dr. Lofton continued to investigate the importance of weight loss in prevention and treatment of medical conditions as she completed her Internal Medicine residency at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was then hand selected from a pool of many physicians to train at Geisinger Medical Center’s fellowship in Nutrition and Obesity Medicine in Pennsylvania.

It was during that time that Dr. Lofton honed her skills at using evidence based medicine to treat overweight and obesity as well as utilizing nutrition as a component of caring for the whole patient. After completing the fellowship, she scored in the top ten highest amongst physicians who passed the Board Examination for the American Board of Obesity Medicine, and went on to serve as a staff physician and fellowship director at Geisinger.

In recent years, she has served on the bariatric medicine committee for the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery as well as on the Advisory Board and Board of Directors for the Obesity Action Coalition, all while training other physicians to become skilled in weight management and nutrition. She also educated the general public about the importance of maintaining a normal weight through lectures, workshops, and a national radio segment.
Dr. Lofton was welcomed into the NYU Langone Weight Management Program in early 2012. In her practice, she combines scientifically proven weight loss techniques with medications and behavior modification to find each patient’s niche. She is currently involved in developing research investigating changes in metabolic rates during and after weight loss.

Dr. Mattar is Medical Director at Swedish Medical Center and a Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. Formerly, he was Professor of Surgery at Oregon Health & Science University. He is also Immediate Past-President of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons and the Vice-President of the Fellowship Council. He has been actively serving on ASMBS committees since 2003. His practice is entirely bariatric in nature and his main clinical interests are in the area of standardizing pathways and optimizing patient outcomes. He has published numerous articles and book chapters in the field and he enjoys teaching and advocating for his patients.

Dr. Meidl was born in Manitowoc Wisconsin.  He attended Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH for undergraduate education receiving a B.A. in Biology in 1987.  He received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA in 1991 and then did his Internal Medicine internship and second year of residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.  He completed his third year of internal medicine residency at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, PA in 1994. He was chief resident in internal medicine at Geisinger Medical Center 1994-1995.  He practiced one year of internal medicine at the Geisinger Clinic in Muncy, PA, then joined the Hannibal Clinic and moved to Hannibal, MO in 1996 where he still practices internal medicine.  Dr. Meidl started practicing obesity medicine in a dedicated Healthy Weight and Wellness Clinic at the Hannibal Clinic in 2017.  He received his SCOPE (Specialist Certification of Obesity Professional Education) from the World Obesity Federation in 2017.  He achieved board certification from the American Board of Obesity Medicine in 2018.  Dr. Meidl is married and has four children.

Dr. Kim T. Nguyen completed her undergraduate training at Harvard College and received her M.D. from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. During medical school, she pursued clinical research as a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. After completing her residency training in internal medicine at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Dr. Nguyen obtained her clinical fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

While at Columbia, Dr. Nguyen was supported by the mentorship of Dr. Judith Korner, M.D., Ph.D. and Dr. Sharon Wardlaw, M.D., and received an Endocrine Fellows Foundation grant for her research focusing on changes in gut hormone secretion and insulin sensitivity and secretion after bariatric surgery. She also further developed her clinical expertise and interest in obesity medicine through working with Dr. Korner at the Columbia University Weight Control Center. Dr. Nguyen has published in Diabetes and Current Diabetes Report.

Dr. Nguyen currently practices as a general endocrinologist with The Permanente Medical Group, a large multispecialty group that provides care for more than 3.8 million Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California. She is interested in improving the long-term management of bariatric patients and expanding the medical weight loss program.

Dr. Nguyen is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, and Obesity Medicine. She is a member of the Endocrine Society, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, American Diabetes Association, and the American College of Physicians.