Board of Advisors

Jeffrey S. Bland, an internationally recognized leader in the nutritional medicine field for over 25 years, is Chief Science Officer of Metagenics and President of Metaproteomics. Headquartered in Gig Harbor, WA, the companies are leaders in the development of medical foods.  Dr. Bland originally founded HealthComm International, Inc. in 1985, which merged with Metagenics, in 2000.  Dr. Bland also established the internationally-respected Institute for Functional Medicine to train health practitioners globally in the application of nutritional and functional medicine.  He is one of the four original founders of Bastyr University in Washington State, the first federally accredited university in the United States offering graduate and undergraduate degrees in natural medicine. With his highly regarded seminar series on science-based nutrition and health, Dr. bland continues to focus on providing practical education to healthcare professionals worldwide.

Julie Cho, D.M.D., is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine.  Upon graduation, she completed a general practice residency at New York Mount Sinai Hospital and is currently in private practice in Manhattan focusing on cosmetic and restorative dentistry.  Dr. Cho has served as a key expert panelist for the Wm Wrigley Jr. Co. in a discussion of tooth whitening products in chewing gum.  She is also a member of the American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, as well as a board member of the Healthcare Chaplaincy, a not-for-profit multifaith organization committed to the total care of body, mind, and spirit . Her interests include running, skiing, and traveling.

Andrea King Collier is a freelance journalist with a passion for writing about food. She also works as a co-convener for the food access work group of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University, where she analyzes policy recommendations for increasing access to good, healthy, affordable food.

Andrea is an award-winning writer whose published essays have appeared in the Best Food Writing annual book series. In 2008 she started a two-year appointment as a W.K. Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, with a focus on food access for communities of color for which she traveled the country to profile communities and families.

She is member of the National Association of Black Journalists, International Association of Culinary Professional, Association of Health Care Journalists, and Online Journalists Association. She is also a regular attendee at the Greenbrier Food Writers Symposium.

Her writing appears in O Magazine, Essence, More, Better Homes and Gardens, Town and Country, Country Living, Hallmark, Heart and Soul, the Washington Post, the Lansing State Journal, Huffington Post, the Root.com, and others. She is the author of two health related books, Still With Me…A Daughter’s Journey of Love and Loss (Simon and Schuster) and The Black Woman’s Guide to Black Men’s Health with Willarda Edwards, M.D. (President of the National Medical Association) for Warner Wellness.

Maurice Elias, PhD., is a Rutgers University psychologist and author of numerous articles and books on emotional intelligence, including Raising Emotionally Intelligent Teenagers and Emotionally Intelligent Parenting. Dr. Elias is Vice Chair of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Leadership Team at Rutgers University and also serves as Senior Advisor for Research, Practice, and Policy at the New Jersey Center for Character Education, Center for Applied Psychology at Rutgers.

Alan L. Gass, M.D., FACC, is Director of Advanced Cardiac Failure and Transplantation at Westchester Medical Center where he treats patients with end-stage heart failure. Previously, Dr. Gass served for 14 years as Medical Director of New York Mount Sinai's Heart Transplant Program since its inception in 1991. His work in tailored, minimal immunosuppresion after transplant has gained international recognition. He lectures at national meetings and academic centers, and collaborates on investigative studies related to transplantation and cardiac assist devices.

Tara Guber’s life and work reflect her three primary passions: family, education and spirituality. In 2001 Mrs. Guber founded Yoga Ed., an organization dedicated to the development of health and wellness education programs and materials that utilize the physiological, emotional and educational benefits of yoga and creative play. She acted as founding member of the board of directors of The Accelerated School, the internationally recognized charter public school in South Central Los Angeles, once named “Elementary School of the Year” by TIME magazine. The School housed the pilot program of Yoga Ed.’s nationally recognized yoga curriculum for schools – creating a model to export to other public schools.

Prior to founding Yoga Ed., for eight years Mrs. Guber served as Co-Founder and President of EDUCATION FIRST!, a non-profit organization that utilized the resources of the entertainment industry to address the crisis in American education. She is the mother of four children.

Mark Hyman, MD has dedicated his career to identifying and addressing the root causes of chronic illness through a groundbreaking whole-systems medicine approach known as Functional Medicine. He is a family physician, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized leader in his field.

Dr. Hyman is Chairman-elect of the Institute for Functional Medicine, and was awarded its 2009 Linus Pauling Award for Leadership in Functional Medicine. He is on the Board of Directors of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, and a faculty member of its Food As Medicine training program. As a volunteer for Partners in Health, Dr. Hyman worked on the ground immediately after the Haiti earthquake and was featured on 60 Minutes.

In recognition of his efforts, he was recently awarded The Council on Litigation Management’s 2010 Professionalism Award, citing individuals who have demonstrated leadership by example in the highest standard of their profession. He also received The American College of Nutrition 2009 Communication and Media Award for his contribution to promoting better understanding of nutrition science.

Dr. Hyman is founder and Medical Director of The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he directs a team of physicians, nutritionists and nurses who utilize a comprehensive approach to health. Before starting his practice, he was co-Medical Director at Canyon Ranch Lenox, one of the world's leading health resorts.

Dr. Hyman graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University, and received his medical degree from the Ottawa University School of Medicine.

Quincy Jones is an impresario in the broadest and most creative sense of the word.  Mr. Jones’ career has encompassed the roles of composer, record producer, artist, film producer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, TV producer, record company executive, television station owner, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur and humanitarian. Among the multitude of awards that he has received for his contributions are an Emmy Award, seven Academy Award nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and 27 Grammy Awards.  He is the all-time most nominated Grammy artist with a total of 79 nominations.

David L. Katz MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP is an internationally renowned authority on nutrition, weight management, and the prevention of chronic disease, and an internationally recognized leader in integrative medicine and patient-centered care. He is a board certified specialist in both Internal Medicine, and Preventive Medicine/Public Health, and Associate Professor (adjunct) in Public Health Practice at the Yale University School of Medicine.

Katz is the Director and founder (1998) of Yale University's Prevention Research Center; Director and founder of the Integrative Medicine Center at Griffin Hospital (2000) in Derby, CT; founder and president of the non-profit Turn the Tide Foundation; and formerly the Director of Medical Studies in Public Health at the Yale School of Medicine for eight years. Katz has published over 100 scientific papers, numerous textbook chapters, nearly a thousand newspaper columns, and 12 books to date.

He is the principal inventor of the Overall Nutritional Quality Index utilized in the NuVal™nutrition guidance program, currently offered in over 500 supermarkets throughout the United States. Katz is a prominent voice in medical media, serving as an expert source for most leading newspapers and magazines, serving on the editorial advisory boards of several leading health periodicals and professional journals (including Health, Prevention, Men's Health, Best Life, and the American Journal of Health Promotion).

Katz has been recognized by the Consumers Research Council of America three times (2004; 2006; 2009) as one of America’s top physicians in Preventive Medicine and in 2009 he was named one of the 25 most influential people in the lives of children by Children's Health magazine. He has consulted to the US Secretary of Health, the National Governors Association, and the World Health Organization. In 2009, Katz received the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health.

He and Catherine have 5 children.

Gerald M. Lemole, M.D., was appointed Medical Director of Christiania Care’s Preventive Medicine and Rehabilitation Institute and Center for Integrative Health in January, 2007. Prior to his appointment as Medical Director, Dr. Lemole was Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Medical Center of Delaware since 1986.

He joined Christiana Care Health Services Staff as a consulting physician in 1975. In 2006, Dr. Lemole was the recipient of the W. L. Samuel Carpenter III Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery, Christiana Care Health System.

Dr. Lemole received his undergraduate degree from Villanova University in Philadelphia in 1958 and his doctor of medicine degree from Temple University School of Medicine in 1962. From medical school, Dr. Lemole returned to his birthplace, Staten Island, New York, where he served a one-year internship at Staten Island Hospital.

Upon completing his internship, he returned to Philadelphia for a residency in general surgery at Temple University Hospital. He did his cardiac training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, from 1967 to 1969. While at Baylor, Dr. Lemole became certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and began serving as an instructor in surgery.   In 1968 he was a member of the surgical team that performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States.

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Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Ornish received his medical training in internal medicine from the Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He received a B.A. in Humanities summa cum laude from the University of Texas in Austin, where he gave the baccalaureate address.

For over 32 years, Dr. Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating, for the first time, that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. Recently, Medicare agreed to provide coverage for this program, the first time that Medicare has covered a program of comprehensive lifestyle changes.

He directed the first randomized controlled trial demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer. His current research showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes affect gene expression, "turning on" disease-preventing genes and “turning off” genes that promote cancer and heart disease, as well as increasing telomerase, an enzyme that lengthens telomeres, the ends of our chromosomes which control aging (in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009).

He is the author of six best-selling books, including four New York Times’ bestsellers: Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Eat More, Weigh Less; Love & Survival; and his most recent book, The Spectrum.

Stephen B. Phillips, M.A., is Executive Director of the Children's Health Education Foundation, a not-for-profit unit of the Touro College School of Education and Psychology, Graduate Division.  Dr. Phillips is a health psychology clinician with more than 20 years experience counseling individuals and families with eating disorders and obesity.  He is a full time professor of education and psychology in the Graduate Division of Touro College and is National Spokesperson for the American Association of Bariatric Counselors.  

Rustin E. Reeves, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.  Dr. Reeves is a Listserve Co-administrator for the American Association of Clinical Anatomy (AACA) and has served as a council member of that association for the past two years. His teaching specialty is the human anatomy and he currently teaches medical students and graduate students in a dissection-based human anatomy program. Dr. Reeves' research interest is in the promotion of science, health, and medicine to K-12 students through a variety of science education outreach programs. As Principal Investigator of Project SCORE, a National Science Foundation funded outreach program, he sponsors graduate students to assist high school teachers in presenting current biology, biotechnology, and biomedical science to their students.

Anthony Robbins has dedicated his life to helping people discover and put into action the tools, strategies, and resources that create extraordinary results and amazing levels of personal fulfillment. Over the last three decades, he has directly impacted the lives of more than 50 million people from 100 nations with his work in leadership psychology, negotiation, organizational turnaround and peak performance.

The creator of the #1 personal and professional development system of all time, Robbins has been honored by Accenture as one of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World,” by American Express as one of the top six business leaders in the world to coach its entrepreneurial clients and by the International Chamber of Commerce as one of the “Top 10 Outstanding People of the World.” He has addressed such distinguished audiences as the World Economic Forum, the British Parliament and Harvard Business School.

Robbins’ coaching strategies are legendary as they are proven to create lasting change in the shortest amount of time for leaders from every walk of life—presidents of countries, advocates for humanity, CEOs of multinational corporations, peak performance athletes, world-class entertainers, teachers and parents. By uncovering the emotional triggers that can help influence both you and others, Anthony Robbins provides people with the tools to shape their decisions and create the ultimate destiny.

Robbins’ nonprofit Anthony Robbins Foundation provides assistance to inner-city youth, senior citizens, and the homeless, and feeds more than three million people in 56 countries every year through its international holiday "Basket Brigade."

Roger Ross is the Chief Markting Office for Guidance Corporation, a nationally recognized staffing and executive search firm specialized in the medical, financial, and fashion industries.  In 2006 Guidance Medical Personnel, Inc. received the first certification from the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations of a staffing company in New York State history. Mr. Ross is a Trustee/Board Member for the Young Peoples Chorus of NYC, the City’s Community Board 1 (Landmarks & Finance District Committee), the Downtown Alliance and the City’s Principal for a Day initiative.

Timothy P. Shriver is Chairman of the Special Olympics, Inc. In that capacity, he serves nearly twi million Special Olympics athletes and their families in more than 160 countries. He has helped transform the Special Olympics into a movement that focuses on acceptance, inclusion, and respect for individuals with intellectual disabilities in all corners of the globe. Mr. Shriver serves on the Board of the Education Commission of the States' Compact for Learning and Citizenship, the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University of North Carolina, and the American Association on Mental Retardation.

Dr. Michael C. Smatt is Director and Founder of the Madison Avenue Chiropractic Center. Dr. Smatt has been in private practice since 1980. A graduate of New York Chiropractic College, he is also a Diplomat of the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, a Legislative Advisor to the New York Chiropractic Council, an Officer and Director of the Political Action Committee and a Member of the Legislative Committee of the International Chiropractors Association.  Dr. Smatt was instrumental in the passage and enforcement of the Insurance Equality Law in 1997 that requires insurance companies to provide coverage for Chiropractic Care.

Brian Wansink (Ph.D. Stanford University) is the John Dyson Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, Ithaca NY.

He earned his Ph.D. in marketing at Stanford (1990) and was marketing professor at the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College (1990-1994), the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (1994-1995), and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (1995-1997) and the Julian Simon Faculty Scholar and Professor of Marketing, Nutritional Sciences and Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1997-2005).

When he moved to the University of Illinois in 1997 he established the Food & Brand Lab which uniquely focuses on the psychology behind what people eat and how often they eat it.

His research has been widely featured on 20/20, BBC News, The Learning Channel, all news networks, and on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Professor Wansink founded and directs the Food and Brand Lab, a series of test kitchens, restaurants, and cooperating grocery stores that are used to understand how consumers "choose and use" foods. With the help of researchers from psychology, history, food science, cultural anthropology, and agricultural and consumer economics, the mission of the Food & Brand Labs' studies is to help consumers eat more nutritiously and behave responsibly.

In 1999, Professor Wansink founded the Wansink Consumer Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization which is funded by book royalties and speaking honorariums. The Foundation supports high school science projects dealing with consumer welfare and provides textbook-related scholarships to selected college-bound students who wish to promote consumer welfare through their studies.

On a personal level, Brian was born in Sioux City, Iowa and now lives with his wife Jennifer and daughter Audrey. He plays tenor saxophone in a jazz quartet ("Shaken Not Stirred") and in an eight-piece rhythm and blues dance band ("The Usual Suspects").