David A. Fields received his Ph.D. from Auburn University in 2000. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in the Department of Nutrition.
In 2005, he joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in the Department of Pediatrics where he is an Associated Professor in Endocrinology and Diabetes. He has authored over 68 scientific publications and written three book chapters. He was elected into the Society of Pediatric Research and in 2006 elected as a Fellow of The Obesity Society (TOS; formerly known as North American Association for the Study of Obesity, NAASO). He currently is Co-Principal Investigator on two NIH-funded grants titled “Maternal obesity, breast milk composition and infant growth” and “Maternal exercise during lactation to ignite infant metabolism” (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development).
My research program is centered on a fundamental question: How does maternal metabolic health shape human milk biology and, in turn, influence infant growth, development, and long-term health? I study lactation as a critical period during which maternal physiology can influence the developing infant through human milk. My goal is to understand how maternal metabolic health influences the infant through human milk and to use those insights to develop scalable interventions during lactation that improve metabolic health across generations.
Academic Section(s):
Diabetes and Endocrinology
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.