Elizabeth J. Parks

Elizabeth J. Parks is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology and Department of Medicine at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. She leads groundbreaking research on metabolic health, focusing on how dietary nutrients influence diseases like nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), diabetes, and obesity, while serving as Associate Director of the Clinical Translational Science Unit and contributing to the NextGen Precision Health Initiative.

• Developed novel stable isotope techniques to study postprandial lipid, carbohydrate, and protein metabolism in humans and animal models
• Discovered dietary sugar's role in hepatic fat synthesis, critical for NAFLD/NASH understanding
• Current work explores weight loss/exercise mechanisms for NASH and diabetes remission

Her research spans metabolism, precision nutrition, and translational medicine, with recent publications emphasizing lifestyle interventions for MASLD resolution, microbiome interactions, and mitochondrial dysfunction in liver disease. Key scientific achievements include:

• Fellow of the American Heart Association and The Obesity Society
• President of The Obesity Society
• Leadership roles in the American Society for Nutrition
• NIH grant reviewer contributions

Dr. Parks actively mentors graduate and undergraduate researchers in her lab, collaborating with institutions including University of Colorado, Yale, and University of Maryland. Her clinical work bridges nutrition science with medical interventions, particularly in obesity-related metabolic disorders.