Executive Leadership & Expert Bios

Felipe Lobelo, MD, PhD

Senior Service Fellow, Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, NCCDPHP

Felipe Lobelo, M.D., Ph.D., is currently a Senior Service Fellow serving the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity.

As an expert in chronic disease prevention, physical activity, obesity and metabolic diseases in both developed and developing countries, he has more than 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has received grants from the American Heart Association, the American College of Sports Medicine and the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and speaks regularly at national and international conferences about his research. He serves as peer-reviewer for several scientific journals in the areas of pediatrics, preventive medicine, obesity, epidemiology and exercise science and is member of the American Heart Association, The American College of Sports Medicine and the National Hispanic Medical Association. In 2006 he was the recipient of the prestigious American College of Sports Medicine's Paffenbarger-Blair award for research on Physical Activity Epidemiology He has an active role in important initiatives such as the "Exercise is Medicine" program and the "Let's Move" campaign to curb childhood obesity.

With experience in national and international epidemiological field investigations, he has an active role in CDC's H1N1 response; investigating the outbreak abroad and serving as an official CDC media spokesperson for Hispanic/Latino populations. His work with H1N1 took him to the White House, where he served as the CDC representative in the first-ever Spanish Town Hall Meeting alongside President Obama and the U.S. Secretary of Labor and around the nation to vaccine campaign outreach events for at-risk populations/minorities. Dr Lobelo has a special interest in health disparities in both chronic and infectious diseases.

Dr. Lobelo received his medical degree in 2002 from the Universidad del Rosario Medical School in Bogota, Colombia, where he also completed an Epidemiology specialization in 2004. He earned his PhD at the University of South Carolina in Exercise Science and in 2010 completed his Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Fellowship at CDC. Dr Lobelo believes in "practicing what you preach" and strongly advocates for doctors to become healthy role models for their patients and communities.

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