Investigators
Principal Investigator
Dr. Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD
Conrad M. Riley Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics | Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes (LEAD) Center Director
Dr. Dana Dabelea is a Distinguished University Professor of Epidemiology and Pediatrics, Director of the Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes (LEAD) Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and Associated Dean for Research at the Colorado School of Public Health. Her research is focused on Youth-Onset Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes and Chronic Disease Prevention across the Lifecourse.
Read more about Dr. Dabelea's research.
Co-Principal Investigators
Traci Bekelman, PhD, MPH
Research Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
Dr. Bekelman received a BA in exercise physiology (University of California, Berkeley), an MPH in International Health (Johns Hopkins) and a joint MA/PhD in Anthropology (University of Colorado, Boulder). She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric nutrition (University of Colorado). Her Healthy Start research focuses on health disparities related to diet and obesity in children, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's lifestyle behaviors, and identifying the best tools to measure what children eat.
Wei Perng, PhD, MPH
Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes (LEAD) Center Deputy Director | Associate Professor, Epidemiology
Dr. Perng is a lifecourse and ‘omics epidemiologist who conducts investigations in long-term observational cohorts of mother-offspring dyads to understand early origins of obesity-related disease.
Anne P. Starling, PhD
Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Anne Starling, PhD, is an environmental epidemiologist. Her work focuses on environmental chemical exposures in early life and how they affect children’s growth and subsequent risk of chronic disease. Areas of interest include endocrine-disrupting chemicals and traffic-related air pollution. In her work with the LEAD Center, she studies biological pathways by which environmental exposures may influence metabolic health, including epigenetic mechanisms. Dr. Starling is a PI on two ancillary studies to the Healthy Start Study, examining the health impacts for mothers and children of environmental chemical exposures during pregnancy.