Skip to main content
NUTRITION 2024 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back

Namanjeet Ahluwalia

NCHS, CDC, United States

Dr. Naman Ahluwalia is the Nutrition Monitoring Advisor for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC since 2012. She serves as an expert advisor and consultant and represents the Center to apply NHANES nutrition-related data to a wide range of planning, analysis, public health, health policy, and health practice issues. Naman provides technical consultation as NHANES chief SME in nutrition science and serves as global liaison to diverse stakeholders spanning the public, academia, as well as federal- and nonfederal organizations. In this regard, Naman has furthered partnerships and enhanced capacity for many health surveillance systems and public health organizations globally. Naman served as Acting Associate Director for Science (ADS) (2020-2024) and handled the review and clearance of CDC-wide publications based on NHANES data and coordinated high priority research projects. Naman was deployed for COVID-19 response ADS work and led the CDC’s Chief Science Office Strategic Science Unit for COVID-19 response during Jan-July 2022. Naman serves on several federal expert groups that inform nutrition research and policy including the Federal Interagency Committee on Human Nutrition Research and Dietary Guidelines for Americans. She was instrumental in defending NHANES methods and in expanding NHANES content to address infant nutrition needs. She is a key player in developing a multi-pronged communication strategy for DHANES to strengthen partnerships and program outreach. She is NCHS DHANES representative to CDC’s Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) Partnerships team. Dr. Ahluwalia is active in the leadership of the American Society of Nutrition (ASN) and served as Chair (2014-16) and Past-Chair (2016-18) of its Nutrition Epidemiology Research Interest Section. Naman has been serving as the Associate Editor for ASN’s highest impact factor journal - Advances in Nutrition, since 2019 and pursues promoting highest standards in science quality.

Prior to joining CDC in 2012, Naman served as Distinguished Chair in Nutrition Epidemiology at the University of Paris. She was instrumental in setting up the first of its kind Masters in Human Nutrition in the Public Health program, School of Medicine and conducted research on nutrition, inflammation and cardiometabolic risk across the lifespan. Naman was nominated and served as Coordinator of the Nutrition theme for the large, multidisciplinary, nationwide, French Birth Cohort Study “Etude Longitudinale Française depuis l'Enfance” (ELFE). She led the Nutrition team for ELFE for 7 years and build this project from ground zero to its successful launching in 2011 involving follow-up of over 18,000 mother-newborn pairs. As Chair of the interdisciplinary group on Obesity for the WHO-collaborative multinational “Health Behaviours in School-aged Children” study, Naman led childhood overweight research teams from over 40 countries to develop targeted interventions and inform global policies. For ~10 years, Naman served as tenured Professor of Nutrition at Penn State University and led a successful globally renowned research program on iron status in health and disease, from childhood to aging with an international focus.

Naman holds a M.Sc. in Food and Nutrition, Ph.D. in Human Nutrition, and D.Sc. in Nutrition Epidemiology. Her interdisciplinary training and experiences with health programs involving over 40 countries span from bench science to policy over the life cycle. She has extensive experience in the fields of nutrition assessment across the life span, micronutrients, inflammation, cardio-metabolic health, nutrition epidemiology, survey design and analysis, as well as organizational leadership across the globe. Naman completed the Senior Executive Service training for leaders in the U.S. government. She has received several awards from HHS, CDC-NCHS, professional societies and academic institutions. Naman is passionate about building multidisciplinary collaborations across diverse partners to optimize nutrition and health across the life span globally.

Presentation(s):