Faculty Bio

Kathy McManus is Director of Nutrition at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Teaching Affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Boston and a Co-Investigator on an NIH funded obesity study, POUNDS Lost.

She received her B.S. in Nutrition with honors from Simmons College, completed her Dietetic Internship at Brigham and Women's Hospital , and received her M.S. in Nutrition from Framingham State College She became the Manager of Clinical Nutrition at Brigham and Women's Hospital, as well as Director of Nutrition for a multidisciplinary Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Center. Ms. McManus was promoted to the Director of the Department of Nutrition at the Brigham and also serves as the Director of Nutrition and Behavioral Modification for the Program for Weight Management with the Brigham Surgical Group.

Ms McManus has been involved with numerous research projects during her 25 years at the Brigham including Manager of the Nutrition component for the Harvard Atherosclerosis Reversibility Study, Director of the Nutrition for the Cholesterol and Recurrent Events (CARE), a cholesterol lowering study involving 82 sites and more than 4000 patients in both Canada and the US, a group leader for the Women's Health Initiative, a co-investigator on an 18 month obesity study examining the effects of a moderate fat vs. low fat diet both controlled in energy, and her current position as Co-investigator on the POUNDS Lost Study, a multi-site obesity study examining the effects of varying macronutrients and controlling energy on 800 obese individuals over 2 years.

Ms. McManus has presented her research nationally and internationally including China , Japan, Crete, Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Ms. McManus has numerous publications and book chapters. She has co-authored lay publications including Healing Gourmet's Eat to Fight Cancer. She was a major contributor to a program that examined barriers to eating a heart healthy diet in a low income African American Community. Ms McManus is the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Community Service Award, and the Lifetime Service Award from the American Heart Association, Massachusetts Affiliate. She has also received the American Dietetic Association's Mary C. Zahasky Scholarship Award, and the Partner's In Excellence Individual and Team Award at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Ms McManus serves on a number of leadership committees including the Brigham and Women's Hospital Women's Health Center's Medical Leadership Committee, the Diabetes Advisory Committee, and the Obesity Research Committee. She is a member of the American Dietetic Association, the American Heart Association, the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, and the Boston Obesity Nutrition Research Group.