Head of Diet & Population Health
Dr Susan Jebb is Head of Diet and Population Health at the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research unit (HNR) in Cambridge, UK.
With 25 years experience in nutrition research, Susan now leads a team of scientists working across a range of public health nutrition issues, with particular emphasis on the translation of nutrition science into policy and practice. She has Chaired the cross-government Expert Advisory Group on Obesity in England since its inception in 2007 and is Chair of a NICE Programme Development Group developing guidance for the prevention of obesity at a local level. She has recently become Co-Chair (with the Secretary of State for Health) of the Responsibility Deal Food Network. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to public health.
Her career began in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Surrey prior to her PhD at the University of Cambridge, where she studied methods to measure body composition. After post-doctoral research at the MRC Dunn Nutrition Unit, she moved to HNR in 1998, where her research focuses on the role of dietary factors in the aetiology and treatment of obesity and related metabolic diseases. It includes observational studies on dietary patterns and weight gain, explanatory dietary intervention studies and more pragmatic trials of community based weight management strategies.