Michael R. Thomsen

Michael R. Thomsen, Ph.D. is a Professor and holds the Governor Sidney S. McMath Chair in Obesity Prevention at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He serves as Director of the Center for the Study of Obesity and is affiliated with the Department of Health Policy and Management within the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health. His office is located at RAHN 6201B, and he can be reached at mthomsen@uams.edu.

He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota (1998), and holds MS (1994) and BS (1993) degrees in Agricultural Economics from Utah State University.

• Research Focus: Economics of obesity, nutrition policy, food access, food insecurity, and school nutrition programs

His recent publications analyze the intersection of food systems, public health, and policy, with work appearing in BMC Public Health, Preventive Medicine Reports, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Current research uses machine learning and agent-based modeling to evaluate public health interventions.

No scientific awards are explicitly listed in the provided materials. Dr. Thomsen teaches HPMT 5335: Data Mining in Healthcare and has advised multiple studies on childhood obesity and food policy. He leads the Center for the Study of Obesity, focusing on translational research to address obesity prevention through systems-level interventions.