Thomas M. Badger, Ph.D.
Dr. Badger earned an undergraduate degree in Biology (Fresno State, California), a Masters of Science degree in Audiology and a Ph.D. in 1973 in Nutrition and Biochemistry (University of Missouri). He took postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in Neuroendocrinology. He joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School where he became Associate Professor.
In 1986, he moved to Little Rock as Professor in Pediatrics at UAMS. He worked to develop the Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute and was Founding President and CEO July 1992 until July 1999. In 1994 he received funding for sixth national ARS human nutrition center in the United States (The Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center) and became the Center Director.
He is the Chairman of the Arkansas Nutrition and Environmental Studies Alliance (ANESA), an organization developed to provide a forum for people in all agribusiness-related fields to identify and solve important current and future problems in this broad and significant segment of Arkansas' economy. ANESA focuses on "value-addition" as a means to improve agribusiness through a better understanding of diet and health.
Dr. Badger has been funded by NIH since 1976 on the effects environment (especially diet and alcohol) on the Neuroendocrinology of growth and reproduction and on endocrine-mediated metabolism. He has published over 200 articles in peer reviewed journals and is currently the Principal Investigator on his R01 NIH grant of nearly 20 years and co-PI or Co-investigator on three other R01s.
One of his current research areas is focused on the long-term health consequences of specific factors found in common foods, especially soy foods. He is the principal investigators of one of the world's largest prospective clinical studies on the health effects of soy infant formula. His research group has recently identified dietary factors that may lead methods for:
- reducing the risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease; and
- promoting healthier insulin sensitivity, immune function and body composition.
John W. Erdman Jr., Ph.D.
Dr. Erdman is presently Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Nutrition in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana. He also holds an Endowed Nutrition Research Chair.
Dr. Erdman's training and expertise encompass the nutritional and physiological biochemistry of man and animals. His laboratory has studied the biological effects of consuming carotenoids such as beta carotene and lycopene, and the impact of soy protein on reduction of serum cholesterol. His research group has recently placed research emphasis on the effects of the consumption of tomato products, or components of the tomato including lycopene, on the prostate cancer incidence. He has authored over 150 original research articles on these subjects and has over 100 other articles and chapters to his credit.
He is a member of a variety of professional organizations including the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and the American Heart Association (AHA). He is past President of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences (now ASN), has been elected Fellow for both AHA and IFT. He has been extensively involved with the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), where he served on the FNB for 9 years, 6 as Vice Chair. Among other committees of the FNB, he recently served as Chair of the Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) and is currently Chair of the Committee on Military Nutrition Research.
For his extensive contributions to the NAS, he was named as Lifetime National Associate of the NAS in 2001 and was elected as a Member of the Institute of Medicine, NAS in 2003. Other honors include: receipt of the Samuel Cate Prescott Award for Research and the William Cruess Award for Teaching from IFT; the Borden Award from ASN; being named as an Original Member in Agricultural Science by ISI as an Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.05%); and several University of Illinois Excellent and Outstanding Teaching awards.
Dr. Erdman serves on a number of industry scientific advisory boards, regularly reviews grants for federal and private research programs and is often called upon to lecture on a variety of scientific topics. Dr. Erdman received his B.S., M.S., M.Ph., and Ph.D. in Food Science from Rutgers University.
Mindy S. Kurzer, Ph.D.
Mindy S. Kurzer is Professor of Nutrition, Director of the Nutrition Graduate Program, and Director of the Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute at the University of Minnesota. She has been at the University of Minnesota since 1989, teaching courses in Introductory Nutrition, Human Protein and Energy Utilization, and Nutrition and Endocrinology, and performing research on the interactions between diet and reproductive hormones. Much of her research focuses on the biological effects of soy consumption.
Dr. Kurzer received a Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984. She was then awarded a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship, for which she performed research at the National Nutrition Institute, Rome, Italy, and Odense University, Denmark, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kurzer has been a visiting scientist at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and at the International Agency for Cancer Research in Lyon, France.
She has received the International Life Sciences Institute Future Leader Award, University of Minnesota Distinguished Teaching and Excellence in Discovery Awards, and the Ruth Pike Lectureship, Pennsylvania State University. In 2006-07, she was a Committee on Institutional Cooperation Academic Leadership Fellow.
Michael Lefevre, Ph.D.
Michael Lefevre is currently a USTAR (Utah Science, Technology and Research) professor in the Center of Advanced Nutrition at Utah State University.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of California at Davis, Dr. Lefevre accepted a position at Louisiana State University Medical Center in 1984. During this time, Dr. Lefevre pursued studies on the basic mechanism by which high density lipoproteins protect against heart disease by removing cholesterol from cells.
In 1990, Dr. Lefevre joined the faculty at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. His research interests moved into the direction of dietary effects on risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Under his direction, the PBRC was selected as one of four research centers to conduct a multicenter study on the effects of diet on lipoprotein and thrombogenic risk factors. In 1994, Dairy Management, Inc., established a Dairy Institute at PBRC under Dr. Lefevre's direction to examine the interactions between diet and genetics. In 2002, Dr. Lefevre received a grant from NIH to identify genetic and non-genetic factors which affect the magnitude of cardiovascular disease risk factor response to heart healthy diets in African American families. Dr. Lefevre led the Botanical Research Center at the PBRC to study the effects of anthocyanins on features of metabolic syndrome.
Today, Dr. Lefevre's research program is engaged in several specific areas of investigation including:
- defining the impact of dietary constituents, and in particular, dietary fatty acid content and composition, on risk factors for coronary artery disease (CAD), with a specific emphasis on lipid and lipoprotein risk factors;
- studying the effects of alternate dietary approaches to reduce CAD risk;
- identifying genetic, anthropometric, and other factors which contribute to the substantial variations in CAD risk factor response to dietary manipulation; and
- examining the effects of phytochemical dietary components on health.
Dr. Lefevre is a member of the American Heart Association's Council on Nutrition, Metabolism and Physical Activity and a fellow of the Council on Arteriosclerosis. He currently serves as a member of the American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee. Additionally, he is member of Kraft's Worldwide Health and Advisory Council and a scientific advisor to ILSI North America's Food, Nutrition and Safety Program and Technical Committee on Fatty Acids.
Mark Messina, Ph.D., M.S.
Mark Messina is Executive Director of the Soy Nutrition Institute (SNI), the co-owner of Nutrition Matters, Inc., a nutrition consulting company and an adjunct associate professor at Loma Linda University.
After receiving a M.S. degree in nutrition from the University of Michigan in 1982 and a Ph.D. in nutrition from Michigan State University in 1987, Dr. Messina directed the Diet and Cancer Branch of the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. In 1990, Dr. Messina organized a workshop on the anticancer effects of soy. As a result of this effort, the National Cancer Institute allocated three million dollars toward research on soybeans. Since leaving the NCI, Dr. Messina has devoted his time primarily to the study of the health effects of soyfoods and soybean isoflavones. He writes extensively on these subjects, having published more than 50 articles and book chapters for health professionals, and has given more than 400 presentations to both consumer and professional groups throughout the United States and in 35 countries.
Dr. Messina is the chairperson of the editorial advisory board and a regular columnist for The Soy Connection, a quarterly newsletter that reaches over 135,000 dietitians and other health professionals. He has also organized and chaired seven international symposia on the role of soy in preventing and treating chronic disease and has organized soy meetings in China, India, and Brazil.
Dr. Messina is the co-author of three books, The Simple Soybean and Your Health (Avery Publishing Group, 1994), The Vegetarian Way (Crown Publishers, 1996) and The Dietitian's Guide to Vegetarian Diets: Issues and Applications (Aspen Publishers, 1996, Jones and Barlett, 2004).
