James Hill

Professor and Chair, Nutrition Sciences; Director, Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC); School of Health Professions
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(205) 934-7922

Dr. Hill is Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition Sciences in the UAB School of Health Professions. He is one of the world's foremost experts in obesity. For over 40 years he has been conducting research to understand how obesity develops, health consequences of obesity, and strategies to prevent and treat obesity. He has published over 650 peer reviewed papers and multiple reviews and chapters in the area. He has been continuously funded by NIH since 1981 and currently serves as director and PI for the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC). Hill previously served as director of the Colorado NORC and was the founding Executive Director of the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

He was a co-founder of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), a registry of individuals who have been successful in long-term weight loss. The NWCR is arguable the foremost source of information about weight loss maintenance. He recently co-founded the International Weight Control Registry (IWCR) as a project to continue to identify barriers to obesity treatment and factors that impact success in different populations.

Hill was an investigator in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and a site PI for the Action for Heath in Diabetes (Look AHEAD) study. He is leading UAB efforts in precision nutrition. His work in precision nutrition aims to identify why individuals differ in how diets impact health. He is author of two weight management books for the public - The Step Diet Book and The State of Slim. He has developed several behavioral weight loss programs to treat obesity. He was a pioneer in promoting a small changes approach to weight gain prevention helped found a non-profit program - America On the Move - to promote a small changes approach to weight management.

Hill is a past recipient of a NIH MERIT Award. He was elected to the National Institute of Medicine in 2018, and is a past president of The Obesity Society and The American Society for Nutrition.