Horn Distinguished Professor, Associate Vice President for Research & Director, Obesity Research Institute
Texas Tech University
Dr. Naima Moustaid-Moussa is a Paul W. Horn Distinguished Professor in Nutritional Sciences, in the College of Human Sciences, and Associate Vice President for Research and Founding Director of the Obesity Research Institute in the Office of Research and Innovation at TTU. She leads the Nutrigenomics, Inflammation and Obesity Research (NIOR) conducting basic and integrated nutrition and obesity research, with emphasis on the role of the endocrine function of adipose tissue (renin angiotensin system), heat shock proteins, and nutrient-gene interactions in metabolic diseases, breast cancer, aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Current research focuses on bioactive compounds (such as fish oil, tart cherry anthocyanins, curcumin, and other polyphenols) that reduce obesity-associated white fat inflammation, activate brown fat, reduce neuroinflammation and aging-related metabolic dysfunctions, using cells, rodents, and model organisms. Her secondary area of interest is in obesity prevention.
Dr. Naima published over 180 peer reviewed papers from work funded by federal agencies (NIH and USDA), foundations (AHA, ADA) and international Foundations (Qatar) as well as industry (Empirical Foods, Inc). She served in several leadership positions within the American Society for Nutrition (ASN, as member of the ASN Board of Directors), The Obesity Society (TOS Council), and the American Heart Association (AHA, Lipids Basic Science peer review committee chair). She completed recently service (2016-2022) on the NIH Human Studies of Diabetes & Obesity), and is member of several scientific journal editorial boards including Scientific Reports (Nature Springer), J. Nutritional Biochemistry (Elsevier) & JAHA (Wiley).
Dr. Naima is Fellow of AHA (FAHA) and Fellow of TOS (FTOS). She received several awards sponsored by ASN (2012 Outstanding Investigator award, 2015 Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Nutritional Sciences award, 2020 Korean Nutrition Society Award). She was also awarded mentoring and scholarship awards by TTU (2018 Nancy J Bell Outstanding Mentor Award, 2019 Outstanding Faculty Mentor for Undergraduate Research, 2020 Outstanding Researcher Award). In 2021, she received the Barnie E. Rushing J. Distinguished Faculty Research Award and appointed as Paul W. Horn Distinguished Professor. She served for several years as the state of TX as Region 1 representative on the statewide Live Smart Texas, a statewide committee dedicated to obesity prevention and resources.
In 2022, she was appointed to the Board on Agriculture & Natural Resources of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine. In 2023, she was appointed Associate Vice President for Research to lead and support faculty mentoring and health-related strategic initiatives at TTU, and was recently elected to serve as ASN’s Vice President Elect.