President of the Royal College of Physicians and president of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). 

Professor of Medicine at the University of Newcastle since 1985, he has worked with both IDF and WHO for many years. He helped organise the Nairobi Congress and was Vice President from 1988-1994 and on the Board of Management from 1991 to 1994. 

He co-chaired groups which produced the NIDDM Desktop Guide and Patient Rights and Roles documents which were adopted by the European Region of the IDF St Vincent group. For WHO he has been on the Expert Advisory Panel since 1979 and was a member of the WHO Expert Committee in 1979 and the Study Groups in 1985 and 1994. 

He has recently co-chaired the WHO Consultation on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes. He has been Director of a WHO Collaborating Centre for many years and ran two courses on Biochemical Techniques in Diabetes for WHO in collaboration with IDF. 

Currently he chairs a group producing a document for IDF on appropriate technology in diabetes. He has been heavily involved in diabetes work in sub-Saharan Africa and in Mauritius and has lectured widely on different aspects of diabetes care. 

At present he is vice-chairman of the British Diabetic Association and chairman of the BDA’s Medical and Scientific Section. He has published more than 900 articles on diabetes and metabolism, and is the lead editor of the International Textbook of Diabetes Mellitus. 

His many other roles include membership of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Chronic Diseases and the editorial board of the British Medical Journal. He received a UK knighthood in the January 2000 New Year's Honours.

Professor Arne Astrup - Denmark

Secretary of the IASO, chairman of the IASO membership committee, and Director of the Research Department of Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary & Agricultural University in Frederiksberg, Denmark. He heads the Energy Metabolism Research Group in Copenhagen and has additional specialist interests in diet therapy and pharmacological treatment of obesity. He chairs the National Committee for Nutrition Research and the Danish Royal Society of Letters and is a member of the Nordic Nutrition Forum. 

Professor Jorge Gonzalez Barranco - Mexico

National Representative of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO)

Professor Per Bjorntorp - Sweden 

Professor of Medicine in the Department of Heart & Lung Diseases at Sahlgren's Hospital in Sweden. He specialises in obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. He is a member of the Swedish National Bureau for Improving Efficacy of Medical Technologies (SBU) and the steering committees of the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) and IASO.

Professor Claude Bouchard - Canada 

IASO President-elect. Also a trustee of the IOTF charity. Director of the Pennington , Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Also a scientific advisor to Weight Watchers International. Among his many posts, he was a member of the International Scientific Committee of the 1997 IDF Congress, Helsinki, the Advisory Panel on Weight Control and Risk Factors of National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA, the Board of Directors, NAASO and chairs the IASO International Advisory Committee for the Scientific Programme for the 9th International Congress on Obesity in Sao Paulo 2002.

Professor George A. Bray, M.D. - United States

Former President of IASO, former President of the NAASO and the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. Born in 1931 in Evanston, Illinois, he grew up in adjacent Winnetka where he attended New Trier Township High School. After taking a degree in chemistry, he studied medicine at Harvard Medical School graduating in 1957. 

Former Professor of Medicine at UCLA and Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre. He was Nutrition Coordinator in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at DHEW in 1978-79. the University of Southern California to become Chief of Diabetes and Clinical Nutrition. He stepped down after 10 years as Executive Director of the world famous Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Baton Rouge, LA. in 1999 to pursue research. He has published more than 1,000 other books, manuscripts, chapters and abstracts.

Professor Ian Caterson - Australia 

The former president of Australian Society for Study of Obesity (ASSO) and the Australian Diabetes Society. He is Boden Professor of Human Nutrition in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. His expertise covers public health, management, body image and the biochemistry of obesity. He is a member of the NH & MRC Working Party on Prevention of Overweight & Obesity and the Implementation Committee for Obesity.

Professor Chen Chunming - People's Republic of China

Senior advisor and Professor of Nutrition at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine he is also the Dean of the Union School of Public health, Beijing Union Medical University in China.

Professor Guy De Backer - Belgium

Director of the Department of Public Health and Social Medicine at the University Hospital in Gent, Belgium. He is a fellow of European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Cardiology and the Secretariat Council on Epidemiology and the International Society and Federation of Cardiology (ISFC). He chairs the National Health Council in Belgium. He is a member of Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium and the International Epidemiological Association (IEA), and the Assoc des Epidemiol de Langue Francaise (ADELF). He has special research interests in the epidemiology and prevention of heart disease. He was previously Research Associate Director of the National Fund for Scientific Research. 

Professor William H Dietz, M.D., Ph.D.

Recently took up a new position as Director of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the US Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta. Former Professor of Pediatrics at the TUFTS University School of Medicine, and Director of Clinical Nutrition at the Floating Hospital of New England Medical Centre, Boston. He is one of the foremost experts in childhood obesity and leads the IOTF working group on this subject. 

Dr. Dietz was principal research scientist at the MIT/Harvard Division of Health Science and Technology, Associate Director of the Clinical Research Centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Director of the Boston Obesity/Nutrition Research Centre funded by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). He has been a councillor of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, and past President of the NAASO. In 1995, he received the John Stalker award from the American School Food Service Association for his efforts to improve school lunch. He is currently a member of the NIDDK Task Force on Obesity. Dr. Dietz's research has focused on childhood obesity and energy metabolism. 

Professor Bernard Guy-Grand 

President of the 8th International Congress of Obesity held in Paris 1998. His recent research has been focused on eating behaviour, pharmacological treatment of obesity and the clinical management of obesity.

In 1989 he became Professor of Nutrition when this medical discipline was recognised for the first time in France. He has been a founding member of the French Association for Study and Research in Obesity in which he served as President (1989-1993) and of the EASO in which he was serving as Treasurer from 1992 to 1996.

He has been a member of numerous national and international committees in Nutrition and is serving as Vice President of "Institut Français pour la Nutrition" and of the "Société de Nutrition et de Diététique de Langue Française". He acts as the Chief Editor of "Cahiers de Nutrition et de Diététique de Langue Française".

Prof Dr Vojtech Hainer - The Czech Republic

President of the Czech Society for the Study of Obesity since 1993, Dr Hainer is a member of the council of the EASO. He also heads the Obesity Unit at Charles University General Hospital, Prague, the Czech Republic. A member of the Czech Endocrine Society, Czech Society for Nutrition, and the Academic Senate of the 1st Medical School - Charles University. He received the Charvats Award for Obesity Research in 1994 and the Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award Twin Study of Obesity (with Professor Stunkard 1995).

Professor Alfredo Halpern - Brazil

President of the Brazilian Association for the Study of Obesity (ABESO) 1997-99, he will chair the 9th International Congress of Endocrinology in 2002. He is head of Obesity & Metabolic Diseases at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil. He is member of the Committee for Residents and Fellows in the Department of Endocrinology. Formerly head of the General Group of Endocrinology at USP, Professor of Clinical Medicine at USP, and Professor of Medicine, University of Taubate. 

Professor Hans Hauner - Germany 

Deputy head of the Clinical Department of the Diabetes Research Institute of the Heinrich Heine University, in Dusseldorf, Germany. He is Secretary of the German Association for the Study of Obesity, a member of various national and international obesity and diabetes associations and nutrition societies. 

Professor W Philip T James - see above

Dr Peter Kopelman - United Kingdom

Chair of the Royal College of Physicians Working Group on Obesity Treatment and the separate Working Group on Clinical Nutrition, Dr Kopelman is Reader in Medicine at the Royal London Hospital. He is a member of British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) Obesity Task Force, and the British Diabetes Services Advisory Committee..

Professor Shiriki Kumanyika - United States

Professor of Nutrition & Epidemiology and Head of Department of Human Nutrition & Dietetics, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her expertise covers African Americans and obesity, US obesity epidemiology, obesity and hypertension prevention and cultural issues in weight management. She is Vice-Chair of the Council on Epidemiology & Prevention of the American Heart Association (AHA) and a member of the Expert Panel on Obesity Treatment in Adults of the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. A former member of the US Institute of Medicine "Weighing the options" committee and the NIH Consensus Panel on Obesity Surgery and Physical Activity and CVD. She is past Professor of Epidemiology of Pennsylvania State University of Nutrition, Assistant Professor of Cornell University, Assistant/Associate Professor of Epidemiology, John Hopkins University School of Public Health. 

Professor Yuji Matsuzawa - Japan

Professor and Chair of the 2nd Department of Internal Medicine, Osaka University Medical School, Japan. A member of the general council of the IASO and the of International Atheroscerosis Society. He has expertise in internal medicine, circulatory disease and endocrinology.

Professor Nazario Melchionda - Italy 

President-Elect of the Italian Society for the Study of Obesity and chairman of the Italian Obesity Task Force. Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, University of Bologna and head of the Metabolic Diseases, Obesity and Eating Disorders Unit, Policlinico S. Orsola Hospital of Bologna. He is also a member of the council of the Italian Society for the Food Behavioural Studies

Dr Willie F Mollentze - South Africa

President of the Southern African Society for the Study of Obesity (SASO) and the Society for Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes of South Africa. He is Professor of Medicine at the Department of Internal Medicine, University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

Dr F Xavier Pi-Sunyer - United States 

Director of the Obesity Research Centre, Chief of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Centre, and Professor of Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York. Dr. Pi-Sunyer is also Director of the Joslin Centre for Diabetes at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, and US Representative to NAASO. 

His research interests are in the hormonal control of carbohydrate metabolism, diabetes mellitus, obesity and food intake regulation. 

A past President of the American Diabetes Association, the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, and the NAASO, he has been honoured as a Fellow of the Fogarty International Centre of the National Institutes of Health. He serves on the NIDDK Task Force for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity and has been a member of numerous NIH study sections and review groups. He is presently Chairman of the National Heart and Lung Institute Task Force on the Treatment of Obesity. He is a member of the New York State Health Research Council. He is Associate Editor of Obesity Research and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Obesity. 

Professor Stephan Rossner - Sweden

President of IASO and former president of the Swedish Association for the Study of Obesity. He has responsibility for the communications consultation group of the IOTF. A well-known television personality in Sweden, he is an accomplished chef and has his own TV show. He heads the Obesity Unit, Huddinge University Hospital. 

Dr Susana Sans - Spain

Chaired the WHO MONICA Project 1992-94, the Working Group on Epidemiology and Prevention, European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 1992-94, and the Task Force on Cardiovascular Mortality & Morbidity Statistics. Director of the Chronic Diseases Monitoring Program, Department of Health and Social Security, in Barcelona, Spain. Previously Director of the Epidemiological Research Commission on Toxic Oil Syndrome in Madrid, Spain 1983-84 and a Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1992-3). 

Dr Jaap Seidell - Netherlands

Head of the Department of Chronic Diseases and Environmental Epidemiology at the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu at Bilthouen in the Netherlands, and President of the Netherlands Association for the Study of Obesity. He is President of EASO, Editor of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and President of Netherlands Association for the Study of Obesity. Formerly honorary Professor of Nutrition at Glasgow University.

Professor Ricardo Uauy - Chile

A member of the United Nations Commission on Nutrition. He directs the Instituto de Nutricion y Technologia de los Alimentos (INTA), University of Chile in Santiago.

Professor Rena Wing - United States

Director of the Obesity/Nutrition Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. President of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and member of the NIDDK National Task Force on Prevention and Treatment of Obesity. She received an award for her outstanding contribution to health psychology. 

Professor Paul Zimmet - Australia 

Professor of Diabetes, Monash University and Director of the International Diabetes Institute. Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for the Epidemiology of Diabetes Mellitus & Health Promotion for Non-communicable Disease Control. 

His research involves the effects of life-style change on diabetes, heart disease and hypertension in developing countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the early detection and ultimate prevention of insulin dependent diabetes and the role of the obesity hormone leptin, in the genesis of obesity and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.

A member of the 1985 WHO Expert Committee on Diabetes, Professor Zimmet was a member of the WHO Expert Panel on Chronic Diseases, and was appointed to the inaugural WHO Global Scientific Advisory Committee for the INTERHEALTH Program - the chronic disease strategy for "Health for all by the Year 2000" in 1988. 

He has acted as a WHO consultant on many occasions in several Pacific countries, China, Mauritius, Brunei, Thailand and in Geneva, and Manila. He has also been Project Director for several Australian International Development Assistance Bureau projects. He was Chairman of the Health Care and Education Committee for the 13th International Diabetes Federation Congress in Sydney in 1988. 

Australian representative to the WHO Regional Advisory Committee on Health Research, a member of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Panel on Diabetes Mellitus and the National Committee for the Development of the National Diabetes Strategy. 

He was awarded the Kelly West Medal by the American Diabetes Association for outstanding contributions to diabetes research, and was honoured by the Queen and the Australian Government with the "Order of Australia" for services to medicine.

He co-chaired the WHO Expert Committee on the Prevention of Diabetes which produced a WHO Technical Report set the global standard for diabetes prevention. He delivered the Eli Lilly Lecture for the 15th International Diabetes Federation Congress in Kobe, Japan and was also one of six awarded the Masugi Takeda Medal by Kobe University for outstanding international scientific achievements. 

As WHO Consultant, he has advised China on its National Diabetes Program.