Janne Boone-Heinonen is an associate professor of epidemiology and program director for the School of Public Health’s M.P.H. in Epidemiology.

Boone-Heinonen’s research is dedicated to understanding environmental and behavioral approaches to mitigating the trans-generational cycle of obesity, which blends two major research areas. First, she has done significant research on multi-level influences on obesity in adolescence through middle adulthood. Second, she has ongoing research on early life determinants of obesity.

She has developed frameworks and cross-sectional evidence that social and behavioral factors such as physical activity in childhood interact with – and potentially mitigate – biologic susceptibility to obesity that arises during fetal development.

Her research topics and projects explore: the extent to which healthy diet and physical activity can mitigate the life-long effects of adverse fetal development; the differences in early life growth across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic subgroups; and environmental predictors of health in mothers and infants.