P.K. Newby is a nutrition scientist and associate professor at Boston University, where she holds appointments in the department of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and in the department of epidemiology at the School of Public Health. She also serves on the faculties of the Graduate Medical Nutrition Sciences at the School of Medicine and the gastronomy program at BU?s Metropolitan College.
Newby?s expertise is in the field of diet and obesity, and she has conducted studies on the dietary etiology of obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the US and abroad. She received the Robert M. Russell Award for Scientific Excellence in Nutrition and Obesity in 2007 and, in 2005, she received a Nutrition Leadership Award from the Dannon Institute. In 2007, she guest edited a volume of the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics dedicated to childhood obesity. Her current research expands from the individual to the societal level to understand how local food and fitness environments impact obesity and health.
Newby earned her ScD at the Harvard School of Public Health and completed postdoctoral training in the dietary assessment and epidemiology research program at Tufts University, she also worked as a scientists from 2004 to 2006. She holds master?s degrees in public health and human nutrition from Columbia University, where she created an interdisciplinary program in public health nutrition that focused on sociological, psychological, and environmental factors influencing eating behavior. She received her bachelor?s degree in social welfare from the State University of New York at Albany.