David L. Katz

David is the founding director (1998-2019) of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Past-President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Founder/President of the True Health Initiative, and Founder/CEO of Diet ID, Inc. Katz earned his BA degree from Dartmouth College (1984); his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988); and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993).

Katz is a board-certified specialist in Preventive Medicine/Public Health. The recipient of many awards for his contributions to public health, he has received three honorary doctorates. He holds 5 US patents, with others pending. He invented the research methods known as “evidence mapping” and “evidence threshold pathway mapping”; is the principal inventor of the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI™) algorithm; and invented the first fundamentally new dietary intake assessment method in decades, called Diet Quality Photo Navigation.

He has authored roughly 200 peer-reviewed publications, many hundreds of health columns both on-line and in print, and 17 books to date including leading textbooks in both nutrition and preventive medicine. His most recent (18th) book, a joint effort with food writer Mark Bittman, is bestselling (hardcover and Kindle) How to Eat. He has served as one of the expert judges for the annual rankings of diets by US News & World Report for much of the past decade. Katz was a 2019 finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award in the category of health journalism together with Mark Bittman.

Katz is recognized globally for expertise in nutrition, lifestyle medicine, and health promotion. Called the “poet laureate of health promotion” by his peers, Katz has given keynote addresses in dozens of countries on six continents, and in all 50 U.S. states.