Mary Story Elected to Institute of Medicine

Mary Story

School of Public Health professor Mary Story has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). IOM membership is a status considered to be one of the highest honors in the field of health sciences.

“My academic career has been devoted to improving the nutritional health of children and adolescents, and it is an honor to be elected to the Institute of Medicine,” says Story.

New members are elected by current active members through a highly selective process that considers an individual’s professional achievement and commitment to service. The IOM is unique in its structure as both an honorific membership organization and advisory organization.

In addition to being a professor, Story is SPH associate dean for student life and leadership. She directs the national program office for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research, an initiative that supports research on environmental and policy strategies to prevent childhood obesity. She has conducted numerous school and communitybased obesity prevention studies, and several of them have focused on low-income communities and minority populations.

Story was elected with 65 other professionals, raising the IOM’s membership to 1,649 and the number of foreign associates to 96.