Our Team includes both scientists who do the research and publish the papers, and our Board of Directors which provides direction and inspiration.
RESEARCH TEAM
William S. Harris, PhD
President and Founder
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
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Dr. Harris has been a leading researcher in the omega-3 fatty acid field for 40 years. He has over 300 scientific papers on fatty acids and health, the vast majority on omega-3. He has been on the faculty of three medical schools (Universities of Kansas, Missouri (at Kansas City), and South Dakota), and has received 5 NIH grants to study omega-3. He was the co-author on three AHA statements on fatty acids and heart health. As the co-inventor of the Omega-3 Index (and other omega-3 blood tests) and founder of OmegaQuant Analytics, Dr. Harris has been ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide based on the impact of his research.
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Nathan L. Tintle, PhD
Executive Director, Senior Scientist and Biostatistician
Sioux Center, IA, USA
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Dr. Tintle holds a PhD in statistics from Stony Brook University. He has internationally recognized expertise in fatty acids, public health, genetics, and biomedical statistics via study design, survey instrument development, and standard and computationally intensive data analysis techniques. He has >125 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Tintle also brings prior relevant experience as an executive director of a non-profit, research institute. As a researcher and research institute director he has led initiatives securing over $8 million of funding across 30+ major federally funded grant awards, in addition to securing substantial private and public charitable donations.
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Penny M. Kris-Etherton, PhD
Senior Scientist
State College, PA
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Dr. Penny Kris-Etherton is Evan Pugh University Professor of Nutritional Sciences Emeritus at The Pennsylvania State University where she served on the faculty from 1979 to 2023. Her clinical nutrition research focused on understanding the effect of diet on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Dr. Kris-Etherton has served on committees that have issued dietary guidelines (the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee and the 2002 National Academies Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Macronutrients and Cholesterol). Dr. Kris-Etherton has co-authored AHA Scientific Statements/Advisories for CVD prevention and treatment, and the National Lipid Association’s (NLA) recommendations for Patient-Centered Management of Dyslipidemia. Dr. Kris-Etherton is Past-Chair of both the AHA Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health, and the Nutrition Committee, and is Past President of the NLA.
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Roberto Marchioli, MD
Senior Scientist
Pescara, Italy
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Dr. Marchioli has been a leading researcher in the omega-3 fatty acid field for 30 years. He authored more than 180 scientific papers in cardiovascular and hematologic disorders. He helped to lead four mega-trials on omega-3 fatty acids involving more than 30,000 subjects at high risk of cardiovascular disease: GISSI-Prevenzione, GISSI-Heart Failure, Rischio & Prevenzione, and OPERA. He has been Head of the Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology and Cardiovascular Disease at the Mario Negri Sud Institute (Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy), a member of the Italian Society of Cardiology Research Center in Rome, and Medical Director at the Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Medical Science of IQVIA.
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Michael McBurney, PhD
Senior Scientist
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
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Dr. McBurney is a nutrition scientist with leadership experience in nutrition research, marketing and substantiation of dietary ingredients, food and dietary supplement product innovation, and communication strategies. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Human Health & Nutritional Sciences, University of Guelph and Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, Tufts University. He has held academic appointments at Texas A&M University (Professor and founding Department Head of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science), University of Alberta, University of Toronto, and Michigan State University. He has led teams at DSM Nutritional Products and Kellogg Company and serves on numerous scientific advisory boards.
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James O'Keefe, MD
Senior Scientist
Kansas City, MO, USA
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James H O'Keefe MD, is Professor of Medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Director of the Duboc Cardio Health & Wellness Center and Haverty CardioMetabolic Center at Saint Luke’s of Kansas City, Mid America Heart Institute. Dr. O’Keefe has contributed 440 articles to peer-reviewed journals, and his articles have been cited over 33,000 times in the medical literature. Omega-3 and its effects on cardiovascular health and longevity are among his primary research interests. He is author of The Complete Guide to ECGs, which is used by cardiovascular fellowship training programs as the preferred teaching text for the teaching ECGs. USA Today has listed Dr. O’Keefe among America’s Most Influential Doctors. Dr O’Keefe has done 3 TEDx talks, which have been viewed over 5 million times
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Yongsoon Park, PhD
Senior Scientist
Seoul, Korea
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Yongsoon Park received her B.S. degree in Food and Nutrition from Hanyang University in 1988, her M.S. from the Department of Nutrition, State University of New York at Buffalo in 1992, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Washington State University in 1998. Dr. Park was granted a fellowship for post-doctoral study at Saint Luke’s Hospital’s Lipid and Diabetes Research Centre which is part of the University of Missouri in Kansas City, and at the Endocrine Research Unit of the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Currently, Dr. Park is a Professor in the Department of Food and Nutrition at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea since 2005. Professor Park has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, reviews, and book chapters. Her research interests include lipid and fatty acid metabolism, omega-3 fatty acids, and clinical trials of functional foods.
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Robert Wallace, MD
Senior Scientist
Iowa City, IA, USA
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Robert Wallace, M.D., M.Sc., is Irene Ensminger Stecher Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa (UI) College of Public Health. He is currently involved in several active research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has conducted many population health studies as well as clinical trials, focusing on the prevention and control of chronic illnesses and other disabling conditions of older persons. Dr. Wallace was a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the National Advisory Council on Aging of the National Institute on Aging and is a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. He received the National Academy of Medicine’s Walsh McDermott Medal in recognition for his distinguished service, having participated in more than twenty NASEM consensus committees. Dr. Wallace has an M.D. from Northwestern University in Illinois and an M.Sc. from State University of New York at Buffalo. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
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Edgar Denova-Gutierrez, PhD
Associate Scientist
Toluca, Mexico
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Dr. Edgar Denova Gutiérrez is a nutritionist at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. He carried out his Doctorate of Science studies in Population Nutrition at the National Institute of Public Health. His areas of interest are obesity, and chronic diseases (metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver, diabetes mellitus and cancer) and the association they have with lifestyles. He currently serves as head of the Department of Healthy Environments and Chronic Disease Prevention at the Center for Nutrition and Health Research in Cuernavaca, MX. He has published over 60 scientific articles in national and international journals.
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Kristina Harris Jackson, PhD
Associate Scientist
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
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Kristina Harris Jackson received a B.A. in Biology from Augustana University in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Nutrition from the Pennsylvania State University in 2013. She became a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and joined OmegaQuant Analytics (founded by her father!) in 2015. She is Director of Research at OmegaQuant and an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine. She co-invented with Dr. Harris the Mother’s Milk DHA and Prenatal DHA Tests. Dr. Jackson has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, reviews, and book chapters on multiple aspects of nutrition, in addition to consulting with clients on how to improve their fatty acid status.
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Rhonda Patrick, PhD
Associate Scientist
CA, USA
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Dr. Patrick earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from the University of Tennessee at Memphis, subsequently completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Nutritional Biochemistry at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, CA. Her published research explores the intricate connections between micronutrient deficiencies, aging, and age-related diseases. In 2014, she established FoundMyFitness, LLC, a platform from which she serves as a science communicator and specialist for a worldwide audience. Through this medium, she delivers scientifically grounded information on a wide range of topics pertinent to human health, fitness, nutrition, and longevity.
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Nathan Ryder, PhD
Associate Scientist
Iowa, USA
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Dr. Ryder received a BA in Mathematics from Dordt University and graduated in 2023 with a PhD in Statistics from Colorado State University, where he developed new statistical methods for epidemiology. With FARI, Nathan is standardizing dataset preparation, performing analyses for various projects, and contributing to methods development for the study of fatty acids.
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Jan Philipp Schuchardt, PhD
Associate Scientist
Hanover, Germany
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Dr. Schuchardt received his PhD in 2007 and since then has worked as a nutrition and food scientist at the Department of Nutritional Physiology and Human Nutrition in the Institute for Food Science and Human Nutrition at the Leibniz University in Hanover. In 2022, Dr. Schuchardt was appointed Professor of Nutritional Sciences at his University. The focus of the research activity of his department is the investigation of the importance of individual food components, certain foods or entire diets for health and performance as well as for the prevention and therapy of nutrition-associated diseases. The research focus of Dr. Schuchardt is concentrated on the metabolism of omega-3 fatty acids and their physiological effects. In numerous clinical studies his group investigated the bioavailability of different omega-3 fatty acid binding forms of marine omega-3 oils as well as the conversion of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids to oxylipins. Dr. Schuchardt published numerous peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and book chapters. In the course of his research, his group has acquired various third-party funded projects on omega-3 fatty acids from the German Research Association and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as well as the industry.
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Aleix Sala-Vila, PhD
Associate Scientist
Barcelona, Spain
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Dr. Sala-Vila received his PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona in 2004. His research has involved the role of bioactive compounds, especially omega-3 fatty acids, from cellular biology to epidemiology, with the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of chronic disease by optimizing omega-3 status. He has received four post-doctoral fellowships (one with Dr. Philip Calder, an internationally recognized omega-3 researcher in the UK) and has published 45 papers on fatty acids.
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Jason Westra, M.S.
Associate Scientist Iowa, USA Jason Westra earned his Master’s degree in Statistics from Iowa State University in 2018. In 2020, he was awarded a National Human Genomics Research Fellowship to work in the lab of Dr. Nathan Tintle. With over 18 publications to his name, Jason's research primarily focuses on fatty acids, big data applications, the development of high-dimensional data visualizations and implementation of various statistical modeling techniques. |
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
(In addition to William Harris, President)
Jason Polreis
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Ellen Schutt
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Sam Wiley
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