David B. Allison, Ph.D., is a researcher, biostatistician, and psychologist whose work has advanced understanding in obesity, nutrition, and aging. He currently serves as Professor, Endowed Chair via Texas Children’s Hospital, and Director of the USDA-ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Allison previously served as Dean of the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, recognized for his rigorous and interdisciplinary scientific contributions.

He earned his Ph.D. from Hofstra University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, which subsequently inducted him into their prestigious Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. His early academic appointments included the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded New York Obesity Research Center at Columbia University. He then served until 2017 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as Distinguished Professor and Director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center.

Throughout his career, Dr. Allison has secured substantial funding from the NIH, including support for teaching courses that explore both traditional and non-traditional methods for identifying causal relationships in obesity research and for evaluating interventions and preventative treatments.

His primary areas of expertise include obesity, nutrition, energetics, aging, longevity, statistical methodology, and the promotion of rigor and transparency in scientific research. His leadership and scholarship have significantly shaped modern public health approaches to metabolic diseases and evidence-based practice.