Career
She has served as the chair of the Minority Affairs Section (MAS) for the American Medical Association, [16] [17] chair of the American College of Physicians Obesity Advisory Committee, [17] executive committee member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Obesity, [18] The Obesity Society Advocacy, Public Affairs, and Regulatory Board of Directors member, [19] the American Board of Obesity Medicine Outreach and Awareness Committee, [20] and the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Heart Association Board of Directors. [21]
She is the director of diversity and inclusion for the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard (NORCH). [22] Through the NIH, she serves as the director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) working group on workforce diversity. [23]
Stanford's research focuses on the utilization of anti-obesity pharmacotherapy after bariatric surgery, [24] [25] [26] outcomes and utility of adolescent bariatric surgery, [27] [28] [29] pharmacotherapy for the treatment for obesity, [30] [31] [32] physician and education and training in obesity care. [33] [34] [35] [36] She has also published work in COVID-19 disparities with Esther Duflo and Marcella Alsan. [37] [38] [39]
Stanford has conducted interviews with the New York Times, [40] USA Today, [41] Time, [42] U.S. News & World Report, [43] Glamour, [44] and NPR. [45] [46] On January 1, 2023, Stanford appeared on 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl, stating obesity is a chronic disease and that there is physician bias against those with excess weight [47] In an interview with Deborah Roberts on addressing weight stigma, Dr. Stanford advocates to eliminate bias towards those with higher weights. [48] Oprah Winfrey interviewed Dr. Stanford as an obesity expert for her "The Life You Want Class: The State of the Weight" on Oprah Daily. [49] In this interview, she teaches about the science of obesity as a chronic disease. [50] In an interview with Sanjay Gupta for his CNN Chasing life podcast, she coined the term "street corner medicine" to refer to the assumption that people judge people based on their size-- they assume that heavier people are unhealthy and leaner people are healthy without investigating whether this is factual by evaluating metabolic health parameters such as blood pressure, cholesterol, liver function tests, blood sugar, etc. [51]
Dr. Stanford was featured as a leading voice at the NY Times Deal Book Summit alongside the CEO of Eli Lilly, Dave Ricks, as they discussed the role of GLP-1 receptor agonist in obesity treatment. [52]
She was deputy editor for Contemporary Clinical Trials . [53]
In 2018, Stanford said she was racially profiled when administering medical assistance to a fellow passenger on a Delta Airlines flight. Flight attendants did not believe that she was a physician despite her presenting her medical license to them. [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]
The United States Department of Health and Human Services and United States Department of Agriculture named Dr. Stanford to the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee as one of 20 nationally recognized nutrition and public health experts. [59]
In 2025, she and over 55 international commissioners, led by Dr. Francesco Rubino, proposed a new definition and diagnostic criteria for obesity. The specific aim of the Lancet Commission was to establish objective criteria for disease diagnosis, aiding clinical decision-making and prioritization of therapeutic interventions and public health strategies. [60]
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