About the Speaker 

Dr. Parks received her PhD in nutritional biochemistry from the University of California-Davis and then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Berkeley/UCSF in the laboratory of Marc Hellerstein, MD, PhD, an internationally-recognized expert in the study of metabolism. Dr. Parks has held academic positions at the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where she collaborated to establish a highly successful research consortium for the study of obesity. In 2013 she moved to the University of Missouri, where she is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology and in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. She also serves as Associate Director of the Clinical Research Center in the Medical School’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, where she conducts studies funded by the federal government and the pharmaceutical industry. The major research contributions of Dr. Parks’ lab emanate from her development of mass spectrometry techniques to quantitate the delivery and disposal of dietary macronutrients in animal models and in humans. Her seminal studies discovered the contribution of dietary sugars to the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). As a result, two of her highly-cited papers have received placement by Google Scholar in the top 1% of all influential publications in Clinical Medicine. From a national service perspective, Dr. Parks has been a standing member, and chair, of numerous NIH grant review committees. She is a fellow of the AHA and The Obesity Society. Currently, she serves as president elect of The Obesity Society, the largest professional organization for the study of causes and treatments of obesity. Elizabeth is PI on an NIH collaborative project to understand treatments for NAFLD, and also a PI on an NIH-funded grant to direct an annual, isotope short-course at Vanderbilt University. Lastly, her research impact is significantly extended by her serving as a co-investigator and mentor on 9 other NIH grants at Mizzou and around the country. Dr. Parks’ current research in humans focuses on how both food composition and post-meal metabolism lead to metabolic diseases.

For more information:

please visit the event page on the NextGen Precision Health website.

The NextGen Precision Health Discovery Series provides learning opportunities for UM System faculty and staff across disciplines, the statewide community and our other partners to learn about the scope of precision health research and identify potential collaborative opportunities.

For questions about this event or any others in the Discovery Series, please reach out to Mary Christie at hindlem@health.missouri.edu