Richard L. Atkinson, Jr., M.D. is President and Co-Founder of the American Obesity Association.

Dr. Atkinson is Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences; Chief, Section of Clinical Nutrition; and Director, Beers-Murphy Clinical Nutrition Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

His areas of research focus are etiology and treatment of obesity, and he has published more than 130 articles and 140 abstracts in scientific literature. He serves on the editorial boards of Obesity Research and Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, and is Editor of the International Journal of Obesity.

Dr. Atkinson graduated from the Medical College of Virginia, was a Medicine resident and Endocrine Metabolism Fellow at Harbor General-UCLA Hospital, Torrance, CA, and an Endocrine Fellow at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Virginia, University of California, Davis, and Eastern Virginia Medical School, and was Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Hampton, VA.

He is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Society for Clinical Nutrition (ASCN), American Society for Nutritional Sciences, the American Diabetes Association, the Endocrine Society, and the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO). He is a past-President of NAASO and ASCN.

He has served as a consultant for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Academy of Sciences, Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, and many private companies. He served on the NIH's Nutrition Study Section from 1990 to 1995, and was Chair from 1993 to 1995.