Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Section on Obesity Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Director of the Dartmouth Obesity Care Center, and Director of the Boston Course in Obesity Medicine. He was previously the founding director of the MGH Weight Center and the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS).
Dr. Kaplan has served in numerous advisory and leadership roles, including as the chair of the U.S. Obesity Medicine Fellowship Council, recent member of the NIDDK Advisory Council of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the 2019-2020 president of The Obesity Society. He has received several awards for his research, clinical and educational activities, most recently the 2023 Thomas A. Wadden Award for Distinguished Mentorship from The Obesity Society.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and his PhD degree in molecular biology and MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in gastroenterology and hepatology at MGH and a post-doctoral fellowship in genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Kaplan’s research has focused on the role of the gastrointestinal tract in the regulation of appetite, energy balance and metabolic function, the mechanisms of action of bariatric and metabolic surgery and the genetic determinants of response to obesity treatment. He is the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific and medical publications.
