International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine, Aug. 14 -16, 2025

Adjunct Professor, George Washington University School of Medicine; President, Physicians Committee

Dr. Barnard is the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and an adjunct professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. Dr. Barnard has led numerous research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body weight, and chronic pain, including a groundbreaking study of dietary interventions in type 2 diabetes patients funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has authored more than 80 scientific publications, as well as a number of books. Follow Dr. Barnard on Facebook and on Twitter at @DrNealBarnard.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Dr. Kahleova is director of clinical research for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. She is an endocrinologist with a doctorate in human physiology and pathophysiology. Her current research interests focus on dietary treatment of metabolic disease and type 2 diabetes. She conducted several clinical trials with a plant-based diet. The studies proved the power of plant-based nutrition to improve oxidative stress and metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. One of the studies showed that a plant-based diet reduces muscle fat more than a conventional hypocaloric diet in people with type 2 diabetes. This reduction in muscle fat was also associated with improvements in glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Her research proved that eating a large breakfast and lunch is more beneficial than eating six smaller meals a day for patients with type 2 diabetes. She completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at Loma Linda University in California, analyzing data from more than 50,000 people, who were followed for more than seven years, on meal frequency and timing in relationship to body weight regulation.

Vanita Rahman, MD, DipABLM, is the clinic director at the Barnard Medical Center and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, where she conducts clinical research, leads nutrition education programs, and provides patient care with an emphasis on nutrition. Dr. Rahman is currently the principal investigator in trials investigating the role of an online nutrition education program in weight loss and diabetes reversal. She is also a clinical instructor in medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and frequently speaks at international conferences about the role of nutrition in chronic disease. Dr. Rahman is a board-certified internal medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, certified nutritionist, and personal trainer. She has authored several books on plant-based nutrition and published articles in peer-reviewed medical journals.

Prior to joining the Barnard Medical Center, Dr. Rahman spent more than 15 years practicing internal medicine with Kaiser Permanente, where she launched a very popular and successful plant-based weight loss program. While medications and surgical procedures can be necessary and lifesaving, Dr. Rahman firmly believes that nutrition and lifestyle play a crucial role in the prevention and management of most common diseases. She maintains that it is important to treat all aspects of a patient's health, including diet, exercise, sleep habits, and stress management.

Dr. Roxanne Becker, MBChB, DipIBLM, is a medical doctor from South Africa. She graduated cum laude from the University of Cape Town and worked for several years in both the largest hospital in the Southern Hemisphere, Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, as well as in small rural hospitals serving low-income areas. Disappointed by the lack of nutrition education in her medical training, Dr. Becker pursued an elective rotation at the Barnard Medical Center. She has now returned to the Physicians Committee to help provide current and future medical students with the nutrition education she missed. Dr. Becker is also involved in clinical research at the Physicians Committee and contributes to content creation aimed at educating the public on the benefits of plant-based diets. She additionally holds a Diploma in Lifestyle Medicine and a Certification in Plant-Based Nutrition from the British Lifestyle Medicine Society.

Dr. Williams is the chair of medicine at the University of Louisville. He specializes in general cardiology, preventive cardiology, and cardiovascular radiology. He is a past president of the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, and former chairman of the board of the Association of Black Cardiologists. As chief of cardiology at Wayne State University, he founded the Urban Cardiology Initiative, and at Rush University he founded the H.E.A.R.T. program (Helping Everyone Assess Risk Today), screening for heart disease and intervening with education, nutrition, and lifestyle improvement. His career has focused on advocacy for national nutrition education, eradication of national and international health care disparities, improved health care access, overall health system reform, sustainable health care financing, and increased access to advanced cardiac imaging. Dr. Williams has served as a consultant for both the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services and as a delegate to the American Medical Association for over 25 years. He was also an active participant on the task force established in 2022 to advise the White House Conference on Nutrition, Health, and Hunger.

A founding member and fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Michael Greger, MD, is a physician and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition. His science-based nonprofit, NutritionFacts.org, offers a free online portal hosting more than 2,000 videos and articles on myriad health topics. A graduate of Cornell University School of Agriculture and Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Greger is also an acclaimed author. How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, and How Not to Age became instant New York Times bestsellers. More than a million copies of How Not to Die have been sold. All proceeds Dr. Greger receives from the sales of his books and speaking honoraria are donated directly to charity.

Tony Scialli, MD, is an obstetrician-gynecologist and a consultant in reproductive and developmental toxicology. He received his medical degree from Albany Medical College, did a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, and completed a fellowship in reproductive toxicology at Columbia Hospital for Women Medical Center. He has been on the faculty at Georgetown University and George Washington University and continues to teach at both institutions.

Dr. Edward Giovannucci is a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In addition, he is currently an American Cancer Society clinical researcher professor. Dr. Giovannucci graduated from Harvard University in 1980, and he received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pittsburgh in 1984. He did his residency in anatomic pathology at the University of Connecticut, and then completed a Doctor of Science in epidemiology from Harvard in 1992. His research focuses on how nutritional, lifestyle, and genetic factors affect the risk of development and progression of cancers and other major chronic diseases. A specific interest has been understanding etiologic mechanisms underlying the relation between diet, physical activity, body weight and composition, and metabolic dysfunction and cancer risk. He served as a member for the expert panel for the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute of Cancer Research and on the United States 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

Peter R. Carroll, MD, MPH, is a professor in the department of urology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), which is consistently ranked as one of the top urology departments in the country and as one of the leading recipients of National Institutes of Health funding for urology. He received his undergraduate training at the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating with honors from Georgetown University School of Medicine, he completed his general surgery training and urology residency at UCSF, followed by a fe llowship in urologic oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He joined the faculty of the UCSF Department of Urology in 1986. Dr. Carroll, who holds the Ken and Donna Derr-Chevron Distinguished Professorships in Urology, added an Master of Public Health degree from University of California, Berkeley, to his academic credentials in 2008. He organized the Urologic Oncology Service, one of the most active multidisciplinary programs at UCSF. He assumed the position of chair of the UCSF Department of Urology in 1996 and stepped down recently from this position and maintains a busy clinical practice and research program.

Dr. Carroll has authored or co-authored more than 700 publications and is an active member of numerous professional medical societies. He is now past president of the American Board of Urology (2006-2008). He is currently the principal investigator or co-investigator for numerous scientific studies. His major professional interests are focused on the study and management of urologic cancers, innovative methods of urinary tract reconstruction, health services research, health policy, and the impact of cancer detection and treatment on quality of life. Although a surgeon, he has championed the use of active surveillance in lieu of immediate treatment for low-risk prostate cancer. In 2010, Dr. Carroll was awarded the Eugene Fuller Triennial Prostate Award and the SUO Medal from the American Urological Association and the Society of Urologic Oncology, respectively. In 2014, he was awarded the coveted Barringer Medal from the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons; in 2019, he received the Société Internationale d’Urologie SIU Mostafa M. Elhilali Award; in 2023, the Ramon Guiteras Award from the American Urology Association; and the Exceptional Physician Award from UCSF, in 2024. He is recognized as one of the top prostate cancer surgeons in the U.S. by Newsweek.

Dr. Ye received his doctorate in nutrition genomics from Cornell University. He received his postdoctoral training in computational biology, also at Cornell University. In 2018, he started his independent research program in the department of genetics at the University of Georgia. He studies gene-diet interactions in human evolution and health. The nutrients of focus in his research group are omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. In 2024, he was tenured and promoted as associate professor. 

Urvi A. Shah, MD, MS, is an assistant attending in the myeloma service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is board-certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology and received a Master of Science degree in clinical and translational cancer research. Her research interests include modifiable risk factors (diet, metabolism, microbiome) in cancer. She completed the first pilot nutrition trial in plasma cell disorders to date (NUTRIVENTION) and has three other dietary trials enrolling. Dr. Shah has been supported by career development awards (National Cancer Institute [NCI] K12, International Myeloma Society and American Society of Hematology [ASH] Scholar) and research awards (ASH CRTI, ECOG ACRIN Young Investigator Translational Research, Henry Moses, Celgene Future Leaders in Hematology, NCI Early Investigator Advancement Program, Clinical Cancer Research Early Career, ASH David M. Goldenberg CRTI). She has published papers in prominent journals and has been an invited speaker and chair.

Jessica Krant, MD, MPH, FAAD, FACLM, is a board-certified dermatologist in New York City as well as one of the first dermatologists to be board-certified in lifestyle medicine, a new field of study focusing on six pillars of healthy lifestyle choices to obtain optimal health and healthy aging as naturally as possible. Dr. Krant’s passion is the overlap of these two fields: achieving healthy aging and healthy skin from within. Knowing that it’s always easy for us to learn what to do but hard to actually do it, since mental health and healthy habits are a two-way street, Dr. Krant also became a certified life coach to help her patients and her coaching clients manage life realities and life stressors that get in the way of our health and dreams. Dr. Krant is currently president of the New York County Medical Society, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and on the medical advisory board of Plant Powered Metro New York.

Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF. For over 44 years, Dr. Ornish has directed randomized trials demonstrating, for the first time, that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. Medicare created a new benefit category to provide coverage for this program. He directed the first randomized controlled trial demonstrating that lifestyle changes may slow, stop, or reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer. In other research, he has shown that comprehensive lifestyle changes affect gene expression, “turning on” disease-preventing genes and “turning off” genes that promote cancer and heart disease. And in collaboration with Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, he has shown that these lifestyle changes may begin to reverse aging on a cellular level by lengthening telomeres. He is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven national bestsellers, including his most recent book, UnDo It!  He received many awards, including the University of California, Berkeley, “National Public Health Hero” award; the inaugural “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; was recognized as “one of the 125 most extraordinary University of Texas alumni in the past 125 years;” by TIME magazine as a “TIME 100 Innovator;” by LIFE magazine as “one of the fifty most influential members of his generation;” by People magazine as “one of the most interesting people of the year;” and by Forbes magazine as “one of the world’s seven most powerful teachers.”  

Bobby Mukkamala, MD, is a board-certified otolaryngologist and president-elect of the American Medical Association. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, he is in solo, private practice in Flint, Mich.

Dr. Mukkamala is a past Michigan representative to the AMA Young Physicians Section, a past recipient of the AMA Foundation’s “Excellence in Medicine” Leadership Award, and, for 13 years, served as a member of the Michigan delegation to the AMA House of Delegates. In 2009 he was elected to the AMA Council on Science and Public Health and served as its chair from 2016 to 2017.

In addition to his leadership at the AMA, Dr. Mukkamala has served as a member of the Michigan State Medical Society board of directors since 2011, as board chair for two years, and as its president. He is also a past president of the Genesee County Medical Society and continues to serve on the GCMS board of directors.

For Dr. Mukkamala, no public health issue strikes closer to home than his own city of Flint’s nationally publicized struggles with high levels of lead leaching into the drinking water. As the past chair of the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, he and the foundation’s board became the clearinghouse for funding projects to mitigate the effects of lead in local children. He is a member of the board of the Foundation for Flint that is working to increase access to high-quality early education for children—a proven strategy for helping children who have been exposed to lead. He was also recently appointed as a trustee of the C.S. Mott Foundation, which is headquartered in Flint and promotes a just, equitable, and sustainable society.

Deeply committed to his hometown’s revitalization, Dr. Mukkamala returned to Flint after his residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago in 2000. With his wife, Nita Kulkarni, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Mukkamala established the Endowed Health Professions Scholarships at the University of Michigan, Flint, in 2012.

For more than 30 years Christopher Gardner, PhD, Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford and nutrition scientist, has studied what to consume and to avoid for optimal health and how best to motivate individuals to achieve healthy dietary behaviors. He is currently serving on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and is the past chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee. He has conducted and published dozens of human nutrition intervention trials, including trials of Mediterranean, ketogenic, vegan, low-fat, and low-carb diets and their effects on cardiometabolic health. Some of his current interests include stealth nutrition, unapologetic deliciousness, and institutional food settings. He is currently working on personalized nutrition explorations with several colleagues, with particular focus on the gut microbiome. Professor Gardner’s work was recently featured in You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, a Netflix docuseries released in January 2024.

Jill and Joel Erickson are licensed Food for Life instructors with the Physicians Committee and certified plant-based nutrition educators. 

Jill’s health journey began in 2009 when her mom battled colon cancer, compelling Jill to explore a vegan lifestyle. But it wasn’t until 2016 when Joel, at the age of 46, suffered and survived a widowmaker heart attack (100% left anterior descending [LAD] blockage) that they both embraced the scientific evidence of a low-fat vegan diet and took charge of their health. Today they continue to experience the lifesaving benefits of a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.

In 2019, Jill and Joel founded Rooted Green Wellness, coming alongside others to show them that food can be delicious and good for you! Jill and Joel work with individuals, small groups, and large corporations. 

Janine McCarthy is a science policy program manager for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, where she works to promote the development and implementation of nonanimal research methods for biomedical science and regulatory testing. At the Physicians Committee, one of Janine’s main goals is to improve research integrity to build trust among researchers and within the scientific literature. In this role, she works with journals, reviewers, ethics committees, sponsors, and scientists to facilitate research that is conducted in an open, honest, and responsible manner and encourage stringent ethical policies to prevent research misconduct. She also launched the Early-Career Researchers Advancing 21st Century Science or ERA21 program, which engages the next generation of scientists and connects them to the benefits of human-relevant research. Janine has a master’s of public health from the University of Albany, SUNY, and a bachelor’s degree in human development and nutrition from the University of Rhode Island.

Kristi Funk, MD, is board-certified breast cancer surgeon and physician, bestselling author, international keynote speaker and women’s health advocate. Dr. Funk practices as a breast cancer surgeon at the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Los Angeles, where she excels as an expert in minimally invasive diagnostic and treatment methods for all types of breast disease. She has helped thousands of women through breast cancer treatment, including well-known celebrities, like Angelina Jolie and Sheryl Crow. As an ambassador and avid contributor to the Pink Lotus Power Up community, Dr. Funk hosts the Cancer-Kicking! PowWow podcast, the Cancer-Kicking! Kitchen, and frequently authors Breast Cancer 101 blogs and provides instructional videos on breast health. Her extensive nutritional science research caused her to expand the passion for her medical practice with the life-empowering Cancer-Kicking! Summit which teaches women (and men) how to maximally reduce their chances of facing cancer or any other controllable killer disease.

Dr. Gemma Newman is a medical doctor and senior partner at a family medical practice in West London. She studied at the University of Wales College of Medicine and has worked in many specialties as a doctor before her current specialty of general practice. She has gained additional qualifications in gynecology and family planning. She is a founding member and ambassador for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK and a member of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Newman has a specialist interest in holistic health, plant-based nutrition, and lifestyle medicine.

She is regularly invited to teach other doctors and the public via training programs, podcasts, and conferences about the benefits of plant-based nutrition and has featured on many well-known podcasts, including two episodes of The Rich Roll Podcast, Feel Better Live More with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and our very own Exam Room Podcast with Chuck Carroll. Dr. Newman has authored The Plant Power Doctor: A Simple Prescription for a Healthier You, which was a No. 1 bestseller in popular medicine and green living. She has also authored her exciting new book, Get Well, Stay Well: The Six Healing Health Habits You Need to Know, which was released earlier this year.

In addition to her own books, she has written chapters for five other published books, including two academic textbooks for Elsevier Academic Press (Plant Based Nutrition for Clinicians and A Prescription for Healthy Living: A Guide to Lifestyle Medicine), two books on alcohol-free living (Janey Lee Grace’s Happy Healthy Sober and Millie Gooch’s The Sober Girl Society Handbook) and one cookbook entitled How to Go Plant Based: The Definitive Guide for You and Your Family by Ella Mills. Dr. Newman hosted five seasons of the award-winning podcast The Wellness Edit. She co-presents the Physicians Committee’s One Healthy World series alongside Chuck Carroll. As a broadcaster she has been featured on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky News Sunrise, as well as BBC Radio. She has featured in magazines including Glamour, Zest, Health, Nourish, and Canadian Vegan magazine, as well as The Daily Telegraph. 

Andrew Binovi currently serves as the Director of Government Affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. In this role, he advances the Physicians Committee’s policy initiatives related to nutrition and research at the federal, state, and local levels. Andrew has 15 years of experience in Washington D.C. advocating for nutrition, healthcare, and animal welfare policy. He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from George Mason University and a BA in political science from the University of North Texas.

Ben Urick, PharmD, PhD, is a senior director of health outcomes at Prime Therapeutics. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy from 2016 to 2021. Dr. Urick’s work in the fields of pharmacy and health services has been cited more than 400 times. His research at Prime focuses on the use of observational data to measure health care value and the impact of managed care pharmacy programs on member outcomes.

Dr. Barnett, the “High-Tech Doctor with Low-Tech Solutions,” is the president and board chair of Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute (RLMI), which he founded in 2015. He is an interventional radiologist, mammographer, body imager, and senior partner with Borg and Ide Imaging in Rochester, N.Y., where he has practiced since 1986.

Like any good parents, Ted and his wife, Carol, performed an experiment on their children in 1991; they became vegan (after reading the works of Drs. John McDougall and Dean Ornish). The experiment worked! All three children are now remarkably healthy and charming adult vegans (and their youngest even won a Grammy)!

As a fellow and former board member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), Dr. Barnett is dedicated to transforming the practice of medicine using the principles of plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine.

Dr. Barnett received his undergraduate degree in 1976 from Yale and his medical degree in 1980 from Tufts, where he also completed his diagnostic imaging residency and became board-certified in 1984. Eleven years later, in 1995, he became one of the first physicians board-certified in vascular and interventional radiology after passing the inaugural examination given by the American Board of Radiology. Twenty-two years later, in 2017, he became one of the first 204 physicians board-certified in lifestyle medicine after passing the inaugural examination of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Barnett has spoken at many national conferences and appears frequently on webinars, podcasts, and radio.

RLMI’s 15-Day Whole-Food Plant-Based Jumpstart is one of only a few programs certified by ACLM. In conjunction with the University of Rochester Department of Nephrology, the RLMI team recently completed a randomized controlled trial of chronic kidney disease patients using Jumpstart.

In March 2020, adapting to the realities of the pandemic, RLMI began delivering Jumpstart using Zoom and the Google Classroom. As of February 2024, more than 300 clinicians have referred patients to the monthly program, which has reached over 2,200 people in 44 states and nine countries.

Dr. Katz is the president and chief executive officer of New York City Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal health system in the United States, with 11 acute care hospitals, five skilled nursing facilities, a large array of community  health centers, and the medical service caring for inmates at Rikers Island correctional facility.

He is the deputy editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a practicing primary care doctor.