Gary Bennett

Gary G. Bennett is the Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke. He directs the Duke Global Digital Health Science Center and the Duke Obesity Prevention Program.

Bennett’s research program designs, tests, and disseminates digital health obesity treatments for the primary care setting. He developed the interactive obesity treatment approach (iOTA), which has been tested in a range of populations, both domestically and abroad. He has authored more than 125 papers on the determinants of obesity and the effectiveness of obesity intervention strategies.  

Prior to joining Duke in 2009, Bennett served on the faculties of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Bennett co-founded Crimson Health Solutions, a startup that developed digital health interventions for disease management. Crimson was acquired by Health Dialog in 2007. In 2014, he co-founded Scale Down, a digital health startup based on the science of daily self-weighing. Bennett earned degrees from Morehouse College and Duke University, and completed the Alonzo Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health.