Mary Story, Ph.D., R. D.

Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs,
University of Minnesota School of Public Health;
Professor
Division of Epidemiology & Community Health

Dr. Story is Director of the National Program Office for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research program that supports research on environmental and policy strategies to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity. Dr. Story’s PhD is in nutrition and her interests are in the area of child and adolescent nutrition and childhood obesity prevention.

Dr. Story has conducted several school and community-based obesity prevention studies for children, adolescents and families and environmental interventions. Her research has focused primarily on nutrition issues of low-income and minority youth. Dr. Story has been the Principal Investigator on several NIH obesity prevention trials including Pathways study, a multi-site school-based obesity intervention for American Indian youth; The Girls Health Enrichment Multi-Site Studies (GEMS), an after-school obesity prevention trial for African American girls and Bright Start, a school and family-based obesity prevention trial on the Pine Ridge reservation with kindergarten and first grade children.

She has published widely on child nutrition and obesity prevention.  She has over 400 scientific publications on child nutrition and obesity prevention Dr. Story was a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) committees on Food Marketing and the Diets of Children and Youth; Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools; Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments; and the Committee on Examination of Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols, and is currently on the standing committee for childhood obesity prevention and also the Food and Nutrition Board . She was elected to the IOM in 2011. Dr. Story has been actively involved in professional associations serving as Chair of the Food and Nutrition Section of the American Public Health Association and Chair of the Public Health Nutrition Practice group of American Dietetic Association. She has received several awards for her research and work in the field of child and adolescent nutrition.