Tom Baranowski is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics and Emeritus Senior Member of the Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity group, within the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Tom received his undergraduate degree in Politics from Princeton University and his masters and doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Kansas. Tom was principal investigator for a large outcome evaluation of the diabetes and obesity prevention impact of two video games, “Escape from Diab” and “Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space” funded by NIDDK; design and evaluation of a casual video game to train parents in effective vegetable parenting practices funded by NICHD; and evaluation of an all-day image processing and review software system for estimating children’s dietary intake and physical activity, called the eButton (developed at U Pittsburgh), funded by NCI and USDA. He was co-investigator on other funded projects to create computer-adapted tests for diet and physical activity parenting, assess the role of narrative in promoting physical activity in exergames, adapt a successful Australian activity promotion/weight loss program for dads to the needs of Hispanic fathers, develop and pilot test a technology-based system to monitor child screen viewing, and assess the role of circadian rhythm disruption in young child summer weight gain. He is currently acting as a consultant on many of these continuing projects. He is founding President of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (which had its sixteenth annual meeting in June 2018 in Hong Kong, China).
He is author or co-author of over 475 peer-reviewed articles, 40 non-peer reviewed articles, 30+ book chapters, two editions of a textbook on methods of evaluation for health promotion programs, and editor of five special issue volumes. He was Editor-in-Chief of both the Games for Health Journal and Childhood Obesity, and on the editorial advisory boards of several other professional journals.