Posted 1/17/2008

Expert in study of obesity joins EPID/BIOS under
the Faculty Excellence Initiative program

Dr. Anwar T. Merchant, an expert in the study of obesity, has joined the Arnold School as an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Merchant, who started work on Jan. 1, comes from McMaster University in Toronto where he was an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

He was hired under the university’s Faculty Excellence Initiative (FEI) program, created to recruit outstanding faculty who will advance USC as a leader in education and research.

Merchant earned a medical degree in 1980 from Shiraz University in Shiraz, Iran. At Harvard University, he earned a master of public health in 1989 and a doctor of science degree in nutrition and epidemiology in 2001.

At Harvard, he also was a clinical instructor in the School of Dental Medicine and a researcher in the Department of Nutrition.

No stranger to USC, Merchant lectured at the Arnold School last April on factors leading to the rise of obesity. In his new post, Merchant says he is also interested in studying the relation between infection and chronic disease.