About

Growing up in Alabama helped shape Dr. Turner-McGrievy’s passion for finding innovative ways to address health disparities around healthy eating in the south. Since joining the Arnold School, she has been committed to working with the community on culturally appropriate dietary interventions to improve health outcomes, particularly among African American adults. Dr. Turner-McGrievy has over 175 publications and has secured more than $13 million in grant funding. Dr. Turner-McGrievy’s research has focused on behavioral interventions for weight loss and the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. She has published research on the use of emerging technologies for weight loss and health promotion, including the use of podcasting and social media to deliver behavioral weight loss interventions. Her research has combined these delivery methods with other mobile enhancements, including the use of diet self-monitoring apps. Dr. Turner-McGrievy’s work has also focused on plant-based dietary approaches for chronic disease prevention and treatment among adults, particularly African American adults living in the southeastern United States. She has served as Principal Investigator on five NIH-funded trials with chronic disease risk factor reduction and weight loss as primary outcomes. This has included an NCI-funded R21 randomized weight loss intervention using digital technology, an NIDDK-funded R01 testing a mobile social gaming intervention for weight loss, an NIDDK-funded R01 examining the impact of the three dietary patterns from the US Dietary Guidelines on type 2 diabetes prevention, an NHLBI-funded R01 randomized cardiovascular disease prevention nutrition intervention trial, and an NHLBI-funded R01 testing the efficacy and implementation of our NEW Soul intervention.

She has received several awards during her nutrition career, including the Recognized Young Dietitian of the Year award in 2004, the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Early Career Investigator Award for 2016, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Excellence in Weight Management Outcomes Research Award for 2017, the USC Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentor Award in 2020, and the James E. Clyburn Health Equity Leadership in Research Award in 2023. In 2018, she was inducted as Fellow to the Obesity Society.