Judith L. Weber, PhD, RD

Research Overview

Dr. Judith L. Weber is director of the NIH-funded Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention at the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI), and a professor of Pediatrics in the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). She is a childhood obesity prevention researcher with more than 16 years of experience addressing individual and environmental risk factors for obesity and related chronic diseases through food systems and sustainable agriculture-based strategies. She was the Principal Investigator (PI) of the USDA Agricultural Research Service-funded Delta Garden Study, the largest school garden-based childhood obesity prevention research study in the country. She is also Co-PI of a National Institute of Food and Agriculture study utilizing farm-to-school programs to address childhood obesity. The COPRP serves as the Arkansas State Lead Agency for National Farm to School. Through funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps), Dr. Weber and her team created and launched Arkansas GardenCorps, a mechanism for placing service members at school and community garden sites to promote and support increased access to healthy food and physical activity. Dr. Weber co-created the Student Research Internship program on the ACHRI campus, through which 103 graduate and undergraduate students to date have completed mentored internship and preceptorship experiences (for college credit) about the problem of childhood obesity. Weber obtained her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences in 1994, and completed her postdoctoral training in Physiology in 1999, from the University of Arizona. She was a certified K-12 teacher (state of Oregon) and is a registered dietitian.