Faculty Bio

Christina Economos, PhD., is the Associate Director of the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity Prevention, the New Balance Chair in Childhood Nutrition, and an Associate Professor at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Tufts School of Medicine. Her research efforts have addressed the interaction between physical activity, diet, and the built environment aimed at preventing osteoporosis and obesity, starting in early childhood. She is the principal investigator of multiple large-scale studies examining childhood nutrition and physical activity with the goal of inspiring behavior, policy, and environmental change to improve the health of America's children. She has worked effectively with diverse communities by engaging theory and scientific evidence as vehicles to spark systemic, community-based change. She previously served on the Institute of Medicine’s committee to develop an Evidence Framework for Obesity Prevention Decision-Making and currently serves the IOM’s Committee on Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention.