David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM

Dr. David L. Katz is a specialist in Internal Medicine, Preventive Medicine/Public Health, and Lifestyle Medicine, with particular expertise in nutrition. He earned his BA at Dartmouth College (1984); his MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993).  He completed sequential residency training and board certification in Internal Medicine (1991) and Preventive Medicine/Public Health (1993).  Katz is the founder and former director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center (1998-2019) where he secured and managed roughly $40M in research funding; Past President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; Founder of the non-profit True Health Initiative; and Founder and CEO of Diet ID, Inc, acquired in 2023 by Tangelo, an award-winning food-as-medicine company, where he now serves as Chief Medical Officer. He is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine; the American College of Physicians; the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; and Morse College, Yale University.  The recipient of numerous awards for teaching, writing, and contributions to public health, Katz was a 2019 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in health journalism, has been a widely supported nominee for the position of U.S. Surgeon General, and has received three honorary doctorates.  He is a 2023 recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Doctors’ World Gala. 

Katz has an extensive media portfolio, having served as a nutrition columnist for O, the Oprah Magazine; an on-air contributor for ABC News/Good Morning America; and with appearances on most major news programs and contributions to most major magazines and leading newspapers, including OpEds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  He is one of the original 150 “Influencers” selected by LinkedIN, and has a social media following of nearly one million. He holds multiple US patents; has roughly 250 peer-reviewed publications; has published many hundreds of on-line and newspaper columns; and has authored/co-authored 19 books to date including multiple editions of leading textbooks in nutrition, preventive medicine, and epidemiology. His most recent book for a general audience, How to Eat, co-authored with Mark Bittman, was a 2021 IACP Awards finalist.

His career-long focus has been the translation of science into action for the addition of years to life, and life to years, and on the confluence of human and planetary health. On the COVID pandemic, he advocated consistently for a policy of total harm minimization (https://www.truehealthinitiative.org/covid/) by means of risk-stratified interdiction efforts- and for addressing the “prior pandemic” of cardiometabolic disease that contributes so much to acute risk.  These views were extensively covered in the New York Times. Katz has presented at conferences in all 50 U.S. states and in multiple countries on six continents.  Represented by the Harry Walker Agency, he has been recognized by peers as the “poet laureate of health promotion.” He and his wife, Catherine, live in Connecticut.  They have five grown children.

Dexter Shurney, MD, MBA, MPH, FACLM, DipABLM

Dr. Dexter Shurney leads the strategy and execution of Blue Zones research initiatives and scientific partnerships. Dexter is a population health innovator and is board certified in Preventive Medicine, Public Health, and Lifestyle Medicine. He’s the former Chief Medical Officer of Adventist Health, the Immediate Past-President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, former faculty at Vanderbilt University, and former Chief Medical Director/Executive Director of Global Health and Wellness at Cummins, Inc. 
Former roles Dr. Shurney has held include Chief Medical Director / Executive Director for Global Health Benefits and Corporate Wellness for Cummins, Inc., and Chief Medical Director, Employee Health Plan for Vanderbilt University and Medical Center. During his tenure at Vanderbilt he also held joint faculty appointments as Assistant Clinical Professor, Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health, and Adjunct Faculty, Owens Graduate School of Management. For a number of years, he served as the Chief Medical Officer for Healthways. It was at that time that he was appointed by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen to Chair the Tennessee Diabetes Prevention and Health Improvement Board. He is also the former Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of medical affairs for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and the most recent Chair of the Business Strategies Committee for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP). Dr. Shurney is co-author of the book “Integrating Wellness into Your Disease Management Programs” which is a “how- to” strategic guide for employers that wish to innovate their approach to chronic condition management.  He attended Loma Linda University for his undergraduate training, and later Howard University College of Medicine where he received his degree in medicine. He holds Masters’ Degrees in Business and in Public Health from the University of Detroit/Mercy and the Medical College of Wisconsin, respectively. He is a fellow in the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and is board certified in both Preventive Medicine and in Lifestyle Medicine