David Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM is a board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine, Preventive Medicine/Public Health, and Lifestyle Medicine, and is globally recognised for his leadership in chronic disease prevention, health promotion, and nutrition.
Katz is the founder and former director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center (1998-2019), where he secured and managed roughly $40M in research funding. He is a past president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and is the founder of the non-profit True Health Initiative, founder of Diet ID, Chief Medical Officer of the food-as-medicine company Tangelo, and a senior science advisor to Blue Zones.
A recipient of numerous honours for teaching, writing, and public health impact, Katz was a 2019 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in health journalism, a widely supported nominee for US Surgeon General, and the recipient of three honorary doctorates. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Doctors’ World Gala in 2023, the President’s Award from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in 2024, and was inducted into Sigma Xi, the scientific research honour society, in 2025.
Katz holds multiple US patents, including innovations in dietary assessment. He invented the research methodologies known as evidence mapping and evidence threshold pathway mapping; is the principal inventor of the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI™) algorithm; and developed the first fundamentally new dietary intake assessment method in decades, Diet Quality Photo Navigation.
He has authored approximately 250 peer-reviewed scientific publications, hundreds of health columns in print and online media, and 19 books, including leading textbooks in nutrition and preventive medicine. His most recent book, How to Eat: All Your Food and Diet Questions Answered, co-authored with Mark Bittman, was a finalist for the 2021 IACP Awards.
Katz earned his BA from Dartmouth College (1984), his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1988), and his MPH from the Yale University School of Public Health (1993).
