Kenny Westerman

I’m an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, with a research focus on precision lifestyle and medicine for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. I use tools from genomics, epidemiology, and data science to understand why people respond differently to dietary and lifestyle behaviors.

I received my PhD in Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition from Tufts University, and am now a member of the MGH Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, where my work involves the development of methods for large-scale gene-environment interaction analysis and its application in uncovering novel gene-diet and gene-lifestyle interactions. I also hold appointments at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where I am a member of the Diabetes Initiative and the Diabetes Genetics Research Group, and at the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine.

I co-convene the TOPMed Environmental and Social Determinants of Health working group and am an active member of the CHARGE Gene-Lifestyle Interactions working group.

CV

Download CV (updated 2026-08-03)

Teaching

Courses

Teaching materials

Mentoring

I advise analysts, students, and postdoctoral fellows in the lab and am generally happy to talk with trainees thinking about careers in statistical genetics, nutrition science, or genetic epidemiology.

Some other things I think about