Christopher Gardner, PhD

Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and Director, Stanford Prevention Research Center’s Nutrition Studies Group; Stanford, CA

Christopher Gardner, PhD is Rehnborg Farquhar professor of medicine at Stanford, director of Stanford Prevention Research Center’s (SPRC) Nutrition Studies Group, and director of the SPRC postdoctoral research fellow training program. His primary research focus for the past decade has been randomized controlled nutrition intervention trials (soy, garlic, antioxidants, ginkgo, omega-3 fats, vegetarian diets, weight loss diets), testing the effects of these on chronic disease risk factors that have included blood cholesterol, weight, inflammatory markers, and the microbiome. His research interests have recently shifted to two new areas. The first is to approach helping individuals make healthful improvements in diet through motivators beyond health, linking to ongoing social movements around animal rights and welfare, climate change, and social justice, and their relationships to food. The second is to focus less on trying to improve individual behaviors around food, and more on a food systems approach that addresses the quality of food provided by universities, worksites, hospitals, schools, etc., using a community-based participatory research approach and taking advantage of the many complementary disciplines represented on the Stanford campus, such as medicine, business, education, law, and earth sciences. (Stanford, CA) @GardnerPhD