Expert Medical Advisory Board
The Aspartame Information Center Expert Medical Advisory Board was created to help guide the Center's communications to health professionals and the public about aspartame benefits, safety and role in a healthy diet. The board members provide counsel on current medical and nutrition science, as well as insight on tools that help address the needs of health professionals in their work. Their backgrounds span critical areas of medicine and science, and each has unique experience in health and nutrition. The Expert Medical Advisory Board has reviewed the information presented on www.aboutaspartame.com.
John D. Fernstrom, Ph.D.
Sue Y.S. Kimm, M.D., M.P.H.
Ronald E. Kleinman, M.D.
Amy Lee, M.D
John D. Fernstrom, Ph.D. received his undergraduate and doctorate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology & Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Director of the Basic Neuroendocrine Program at the Western Psychiatric Institute, and Clinic Research Director at UPMC Health System Weight Management Center. His past professional appointments included posts at MIT and Boston University School of Medicine.
He is a member of numerous professional societies, including The American Society for Nutritional Sciences, The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, The American Society for Neurochemistry and The North American Association for the Study of Obesity.
Dr. Fernstrom has received several awards including the NIMH Research Scientist Award, NIMH Research Scientist Development Award and the Mead-Johnson Award from the American Institute of Nutrition. In addition, he previously served as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in Neurochemistry.
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Sue Y.S. Kimm, M.D., M.P.H. is a research professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM.
Dr. Kimm earned her M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine in 1964, and after completing residencies in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, MA and Case Western reserve Hospital in Cleveland, OH, she earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology and a M.Sc. in Nutrition from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her publications have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and many others. Dr. Kimm has held various teaching positions at teaching hospitals in Asia, Africa and the United States, and is former director of the Pediatric Obesity and Hypertension Clinic at Duke University.
Dr. Kimm is an accomplished National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded researcher and has current research interests in cardiovascular disease epidemiology with a focus on ethnicity, women and childhood precursors of adult-onset chronic diseases, genetic epidemiology of lipid metabolism and obesity, and psychosocial predictors of obesity development in women. She has been a member of various NIH review committees and study section during the past 15 years and from 1985-1987, was acting chief of the nutrition research section in the Prevention Branch of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a division of NIH.
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Ronald E. Kleinman, M.D. received his medical training from New York Medical College and Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and residency in pediatrics at the Montefiore Hospital and Medical College, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Kleinman currently practices in the Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. He is a visiting faculty member at Cambridge City Hospital and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Kleinman served as chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition . His other major committee assignments include chairman of the Clinical Practice Management/Quality Improvement Committee of the Children's Service Committee at Massachusetts General Hospital; member of the American Cancer Society's Medical Advisory Group on Diet and Nutrition; and member of Harvard Medical School's Nutrition Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the FDA's Infant Formula Subcommittee of the Food Advisory Committee and a member of the Institute of Nutrition Scientific Advisory Board, which is located in Lima, Peru.
Dr. Kleinman serves on a number of editorial boards and is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, the Society for Pediatric Research and the Gastroenterology Research Group, among other associations and organizations.
His major research interests are Gastrointestinal Immunology; Developmental Gastroenterology; Treatment of Acute Diarrheal Disease; and Psychosocial, Cognitive and Physical Effects of Hunger in Childhood.
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Amy Lee, M.D. received her undergraduate degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. She attended medical school at the University of Illinois, and completed her residency in internal medicine at the University of Southern California and a Clinical Nutrition Research Fellowship at UCLA.
Dr. Lee is a practicing physician at the Good Samaritan Hospital where she is also the team physician for the Good Samaritan Hospital Employee Wellness Program. Through her private practice she also provides nutrition and wellness counseling to community hospitals, and boutique gyms, such as CrossFit –Ganbatte in Los Angeles.
Dr. Lee encourages her patients to incorporate nutrition and weight management into their daily lives. She also incorporates these elements into her standard medical treatment.
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