Ethical Considerations: Studying Behavioral Phenotypes in Weight-Discordant Siblings | Speaker Dr. Tanja Kral

Tanja Kral, Ph.D.

Tanja Kral is the Ellen and Robert Kapito Endowed Professor and a Professor of Nutrition Science in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kral is a nutrition scientist with expertise in the study of human ingestive behavior. She received her MS and PhD in Nutritional Sciences from Penn State University. Before joining the faculty at Penn in 2007, Dr. Kral completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at Drexel University where she worked on a weight loss intervention at a healthcare worksite, and another one at Penn where she worked on a longitudinal study of children born at different risk for obesity.

 Dr. Kral’s research focuses on the cognitive, sensory, and nutritional controls of appetite and eating in children and adults and their relevance to obesity. The goal of her interdisciplinary research program is to advance the prevention and treatment of obesity by identifying behavioral phenotypes for obesity. Dr. Kral’s current NIH-funded research examines the interplay between genotype and phenotype and assesses the extent to which energy balance behaviors in conjunction with family-level influences can modify behavioral and genetic predispositions to childhood obesity.