Dr. Simon Barquera is a MD (‘94) (UAM, Mexico City), with graduate MS (‘96) and PhD (‘05) degrees in Nutrition Epidemiology (Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston). He is director of the Nutrition and Health Research Center at the National Institute of Public Health, where he is leader of the Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease research line (2015-). He has been a consultant for WHO, PAHO, UNICEF and the IAEA in the fields of nutrition, obesity and chronic diseases and has published more than 338 research papers and chapters and has 28,900 citations to his work. He is co-investigator of the Mexican Health and Nutrition Surveys (1999-2016), Member of the Ministry of Health Chronic Diseases advisory board, the PAHO Expert Group on sodium reduction and fellow of the Obesity Society. Dr Barquera has been recognized as National Investigator by the National Council of Science and Technology, fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. He has received the PAHO Fred L Soper award for excellence in health literature (2003), the Tufts University Nutrition Impact Award (2016), the UAM Distinguished Alumni Award (2016) and the 11th Michael and Susan Dell Lectureship Award in Child Health (2017), the Public Health Merit Award from the Mexican Ministry of Health “Premio Dr Gerardo Varela” (2020) and has been keynote speaker at the 70 Anniversary of "El Colegio Nacional" (the premier cultural institution in Mexico). In July 2024 he became President of the World Obesity Federation.Twitter: @sbarquera