Jennifer Trilk

Jennifer Trilk, PhD, FACSM, DipACLM is an Associate Professor at University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville and Director of the Lifestyle Medicine Core Curriculum which comprehensively trains medical students in nutrition, physical activity/exercise, behavior change, student/patient self-care, and resiliency to prevent and treat the nation’s top chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and various forms of cancer.

Dr. Trilk also co-founded and co-directs the Lifestyle Medicine Education Collaborative (LMEd), which provides leadership and guidance to medical schools across the globe. In 2019, LMEd was awarded the U.S. President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award, Dr. Trilk's second PCFSN award. She also founded and directs Exercise is Medicine Greenville®, a comprehensive 12-week medically-based exercise and lifestyle program for adults with chronic health conditions. In 2016, she represented Exercise is Medicine Greenville as the first program of its kind at a press conference at the. Nation Press Club in Washington, DC, and in 2019 she received the Exercise is Medicine Global Leadership Award from the American College of Sports Medicine.

Dr. Trilk has received national recognition by the Association of American Medical Colleges (Press Release 2017; Press Release 2018), U.S. News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, and CNN, among others. She also has worked internationally as an invited adjunct professor at the Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale (UPO) medical school in Novara, Italy, and as an invited speaker at the VegMed Online 2021 conference in Berlin, Germany. She also was designated to the Advisory Board for Physicians Association for Nutrition International in 2020, and honored to be elected to the Board of Trustees for the American College of Sports Medicine in 2021, enhancing her global reach for Lifestyle Medicine education. In 2017, Dr. Trilk presented the rational for Lifestyle Medicine training in medical school at a Capitol Hill congressional briefing in partnership with the American College of Preventive Medicine, in 2014 was awarded her first U.S. President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award, and in 2013 was an invited speaker for the Bipartisan Policy Center: “Teaching Nutrition and Physical Activity in Medical School: Training Doctors for Prevention-Oriented Care.”

Dr. Trilk is a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network's Health Innovators Fellowship Program, a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, and a Diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Research Interest(s):

• Lifestyle Medicine (Exercise, Nutrition, Sleep, Stress)
• Chronic Populations (Type 2 Diabetes, CVD, Obesity)
• Spinal Cord Injury, Parkinson's Disease, Cancer

Honors & Awards:

• Diplomat of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine
• Exercise is Medicine Global Leadership Award
• U.S. President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award (LMEd)
• Fellow, Aspen Institute Health Innovator
• Fellow of American College of Sports Medicine
• Outstanding Scholar Award, USC School of Medicine Greenville
• U.S. President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Community Leadership Award (Lifestyle Medicine Teaching)
• NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA) for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows
• Graduate School Dissertation Completion Award
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award
• Mary Ella Lunday Soule Scholarship Award
• Graduate School Assistantship
• Gamma Sigma Delta Honor Society
• Alpha Zeta Honor Society