Heidi M. Blanck, PhD, Retired Captain USPHS

What I do: 
Heidi Michels Blanck, PhD, (Retired, Captain USPHS), she/her, has more than 25 years of public health experience and has authored over 150 papers. She serves as CDC’s Chief of Community Nutrition and Obesity Prevention. Dr. Blanck supports teams working on national and state surveillance, applied research, guidelines, and technical assistance to support health and health equity through early childcare and education (ECE) programs, healthy nutrition standards in food service and food pantries, family healthy weight programs to support child growth, and retail/community efforts to support food and nutrition security including fruit and vegetable programs. She supports research-practitioner partnerships including the Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) and serves as liaison to the National Academies Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. Dr. Blanck received her PhD in Nutrition and Health Science from Emory University (where she serves as adjunct professor) and MS in Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan. Heidi enjoys hiking, gardening, her family pets and board game time with family and friends.