Dr. Charles P. Vega, MD grew up in Northern California and completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard University.  He attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and completed residency training in Family Medicine at UC Irvine.  He stayed on as faculty in the Department of Family Medicine at UCI and now holds the title of Health Sciences Clinical Professor.  He is the Executive Director of UCI’s Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community and won a Macy Faculty Scholarship to improve patient-centered health education at UCI.  He currently serves as Assistant Dean for Culture and Community Education in the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Dr. Vega has seen patients and taught medical students and residents at UC Irvine’s Family Health Center – Santa Ana for the past 20 years.  This clinic is a federally-qualified health center and the largest safety-net clinic for Orange County.  Dr. Vega’s academic interests are focused on access to quality, compassionate medical care for underserved populations, and the development of training programs to promote this vision of healthcare.

Dr. Donna Ryan is Professor Emerita at Pennington Biomedical in Baton Rouge, LA, USA where she had a 25-year career in clinical research in obesity. She was an Investigator on POUNDS Lost, Look AHEAD, DPP, DASH and many other studies of the health benefits of weight loss by diet, lifestyle intervention and medications. Her personal research studied how to improve obesity treatment in primary care practices. She has been an active member and former President of The Obesity Society (North America) and World Obesity Federation. She has more than 300 publications and is a frequent speaker on obesity and diabetes treatments.  She remains an active consultant and advisor to companies developing drugs, devices, lifestyle programs and medical approaches to obesity management.