Deirdre Tobias

Dr. Deirdre Tobias is an obesity and nutritional epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. She received her doctorate and postdoctoral training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Dr. Tobias was appointed the Academic Editor for the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2019. Her research focuses on the role of diet and lifestyle for obesity and its major chronic diseases, including gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes, and has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association. She contributes to the development and analyses of healthful dietary patterns, metabolomics, and nutrition epidemiologic methods, and is co-Instructor of Nutritional Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

Education and Training

• BA, 2005, Premed, psychology
  College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

• MSc, 2009, Epidemiology
  Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA

• ScD, 2011, Nutritional Epidemiology; Epidemiology
  Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA

Academic and Professional Honors:

• 2009 – National Institutes of Health Summer Institute Program Award, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD
• 2009 – Donald and Sue Pritzker Scholarship Fund Obesity Fellowship, Harvard School of Public Health
• 2010 – Trudy Bush Fellowship for Cardiovascular Disease Research in Women’s Health, American Heart Association, Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
• 2010 – Student Travel Scholarship Award, Society of Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA
• 2011 – Student Travel Scholarship Award, Society of Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting, Montreal CA
• 2011 – Best Plenary Presentation, Society of Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada
• 2011 – Best of AHA Specialty Conference, American Heart Association, Scientific Sessions, Orlando FL
• 2012 – Annual Travel Award Winner, Harvard School of Public Health Post-Doc Society Association
• 2012 – Student Travel Scholarship Award, Society of Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN
• 2013 – Best of AHA Specialty Conference, American Heart Association, Scientific Sessions, Dallas, TX

Recent Publications:

• Tobias DK, Hu FB. Does Being Overweight Really Reduce Mortality? Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Sep;21(9):1746-9.
• Tobias DK, Chavarro JE, Williams MA, Buck Louis GM, Hu FB, Rich-Edwards J, Missmer SA, Zhang C. History of infertility and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective analysis of 40,773 pregnancies. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2013 Aug 15.
• Bao W, Bowers K, Tobias DK, Hu FB, Zhang C. Prepregnancy dietary protein intake, major dietary protein sources, and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort study. Diabetes Care. 2013 Jul;36(7):2001-8.
• Tobias DK, Hu FB, Chavarro J, Rosner B, Mozaffarian D, Zhang C. Healthful dietary patterns and type 2 diabetes risk among women with prior gestational diabetes mellitus. Archives of Internal Medicine 2012; 2012 Sep 17:1-7.
• Tobias DK, Zhang C, Chavarro J, Bowers K, Rich-Edwards J, Rosner B, Mozaffarian D, Hu FB. Pre-pregnancy adherence to dietary patterns and decreased risk of gestational diabetes mellitus. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2012 Aug;96(2):289-95.
• Tobias DK, Hu FB. Commentary: Obesity and mortality in China: The shape of things to come. International Journal of Epidemiology 2012; March, In Press.
• Chen L, Hu FB, Yeung E, Tobias DK, Willett WC, Zhang C. Prepregnancy Consumption of Fruits and Fruit Juices and the Risk of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A prospective cohort study. Diabetes Care 2012; March, In Press.
• Bowers K, Tobias DK, Yeung E, Hu FB, Zhang C. A prospective study of pre-pregnancy dietary fat intake and risk for gestational diabetes. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2011; In Press
• Tobias DK, Hu FB, Forman JP, Chavarro J, Zhang C. Increased risk of hypertension after gestational diabetes: Findings from a large prospective cohort study. Diabetes Care 2011; 34(7): 1582-4.
• Bowers K, Yeung E, Williams MA, Qi L, Tobias DK, Hu FB, Zhang C. A prospective study of pre-pregnancy dietary iron intake and risk for gestational diabetes. Diabetes Care 2011; 34(7): 1557-63.
• Tobias DK, Zhang C, van Dam RM, Bowers K, Hu FB. Physical activity before and during pregnancy and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis. Diabetes Care 2010; 34(1): 223-9.
• Banel DK, Hu FB. The effects of walnut consumption on blood lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors: A meta-analysis and systematic review. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2009; 90(1): 56-63.
• Buchwald H, Estok R, Fahrbach K, Banel DK, Jensen M, Pories W, Bantle J, Sledge I. Weight and Type 2 Diabetes after Bariatric Surgery: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. American Journal of Medicine 2009; 122(3): 248-56.
• Cunneen SA, Phillips E, Fielding G, Banel DK, Estok R, Fahrbach K, Sledge I. Studies of Swedish adjustable gastric band and Lap-Band: systematic review and meta-analysis. Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases 2008; 4(2): 174-85.
• Buchwald H, Estok R, Fahrbach K, Banel DK, Sledge I. Trends in mortality in bariatric surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Surgery 2007; 142(4): 621-32.