James F Sallis, Ph.D. and Gabriella M. McLoughlin, Ph.D.

About James F Sallis, Ph.D. and Gabriella M. McLoughlin, Ph.D.

James F Sallis, Ph.D. James F. Sallis, Ph.D is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California San Diego and Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.  He was Principal Investigator of the NIH grants that created the original SPARK programs. His health improvement programs have been studied and used in health care settings, schools, universities, and companies. His current research interests are promoting physical activity and understanding how to create more activity-friendly communities for people of all ages. He has authored over 750 scientific publications and is one of the world's most cited authors. Dr. Sallis is Past-President of Society of Behavioral Medicine, member of the US National Academy of Medicine, and has won numerous national and international awards. www.drjimsallis.org Gabriella M. McLoughlin, Ph.D., M.S – Biography Dr. Gabriella McLoughlin is an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Public Health at Temple University. She received a master's and doctoral degree in kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2012-2018), before working at Iowa State University as a postdoctoral research associate (2018-2020), leading projects on childhood obesity prevention and school wellness programming. Dr. McLoughlin received in-depth training in implementation science in chronic disease prevention as a research associate at Washington University in St. Louis. Current applications of implementation science reflect a variety of topics pertaining to health disparities in cancer prevention, addressing food insecurity in underserved communities, school health policy implementation, and community approaches to obesity prevention more broadly. Dr. McLoughlin is deeply committed to improving implementation of evidence-based policies and programs that address health equity through pragmatic approaches.