Dr. Fields is an Associate Professor and the CHF Chickasaw Nation Endowed Chair in Pediatric Diabetes in the Pediatric Metabolic Research Program. He completed his PhD in Exercise Physiology from Auburn University and received post-doctoral training in physiology and nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. The overarching focus of his research program is to understand how perinatal body composition affects future health.
Education:
He completed his PhD in Exercise Physiology from Auburn University while receiving pre-doctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Upon graduating, he went on for post-doctoral training in physiology and nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.
Clinical/Research Interests:
The overarching focus of his research program is to understand how perinatal body composition affects future health with ≈450 mother/infant dyads currently enrolled in his research programs (i.e. Baby Peas) with greater than 60% of subjects having multiple year follow-up visits. Specifically, the emphasis is to understand the role of modifiable gravid maternal factors (e.g. diet, physical activity, diabetes, obesity and mode of feeding) on the development of their offspring’s fat and lean mass in the first month of life and the subsequent influence on future disease risk in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. His current NIH study (“Maternal Obesity, Breast Milk Composition, and Infant Growth” $3.6 million; in collaboration with Dr. Ellen Demerath at the University of Minnesota) characterizes human breast milk in a diverse group of mothers with a focus in better understanding how it impacts early body composition.