EASO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation are pleased to announce four recipients of New Investigator Awards. Each award includes a research grant of DKK 300,000.
The awards will be presented at the 33rd European Congress on Obesity (#ECO2026), taking place in Istanbul from 12–15 May 2026. Attendees are warmly invited to join the New Investigator Award Session on Wednesday 13 May at 11:30 in Hall 6 at the Istanbul Congress Centre, where the awardees will present their work.
I Gusti Ngurah Edi (“Eddy”) Putra (United Kingdom), Winner of the Award in Public Health
A Lecturer in the Appetite and Obesity Group, Department of Psychology, and a Research Associate (NIHR DSE Fellow) in the NCD Prevention and Food Policy Modelling Group, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, UK. With a background in quantitative public health research, his current work focuses on understanding the effectiveness of food labelling policies (e.g., menu labelling) and estimating the long-term population-level health and economic impacts of obesity-related public health policies (e.g., taxation, front-of-package nutrition labelling). Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology, where he examined the role of psychological well-being in explaining weight change and obesity-related adverse physical health outcomes using large-scale longitudinal data from the UK and the US (e.g., see Le Gardien, BBC). He also led research on the acceptability of obesity-related public health policies among UK adults with eating disorders and other mental health conditions, and contributed to studies evaluating the impact and accuracy of menu calorie labelling policy in England. His research interests include obesity and psychological well-being, obesity-related public health policies, non-communicable diseases, and social inequalities in health.
Sara E. Stinson (Norway), Winner of the Award in Childhood Obesity
A Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Section for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Norway. Her postdoctoral research is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation through a DD2 Research Grant, where she serves as Principal Investigator of DIAGMENT – a project integrating multi-omics data with national health registries to improve prediction of age at onset of type 2 diabetes and risk of cardiovascular complications.
Sara completed her PhD at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, as part of the competitive Copenhagen Bioscience PhD Programme. Her doctoral research investigated proglucagon-derived hormones and plasma proteomic biomarkers associated with pediatric obesity, advancing mechanistic understanding of early cardiometabolic risk and response to non-pharmacological interventions.
She received her MSc in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
With a multidisciplinary and international background, her research combines large-scale genetics, proteomics, and metabolomics with longitudinal clinical data in Nordic cohorts to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying childhood obesity to refine disease stratification approaches, enabling earlier precision-based prevention strategies.
Nele Steenackers (Belgium), Winner of the Award in Clinical Research
A tenure-track Assistant Professor at the School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM) at Maastricht University, Netherlands. She is a biomedical scientist specialized in nutrition, a registered dietitian, and trained in health economics. Her research examines how lifestyle and nutrition can support sustainable obesity treatment across care settings with a particular interest in preventive approaches and behavioral factors that shape treatment response.
She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at KU Leuven Belgium, where she investigated how obesity and bariatric surgery alter gastrointestinal transit, pH, bile acid metabolism, and nutrient absorption. This work contributed to a better understanding of nutritional deficiencies and metabolic adaptation in chronic care. Her current research extends this translational framework, examining how dietary patterns, food-related behaviors, and gastrointestinal physiology interact with treatment response, positioning nutrition as both a supportive and optimizing strategy alongside surgical and pharmacological treatment. Alongside biological mechanisms, her work considers the cognitive, behavioral, and contextual factors that influence how patients experience and adhere to treatment in real-world settings. Beyond academia, she actively bridges science, clinical practice, and policy working with patient organizations, and healthcare professionals, to translate research into accessible, person-centered obesity care.
Jens Lund (Denmark), Winner of the Award in Basic Science
A postdoctoral fellow at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at University of Copenhagen. Jens is trained in nutrition, biochemistry, and human biology. From 2023-2025, he was a fellow of the BRIDGE – Translational Excellence Programme at University of Copenhagen. Jens investigates the biological regulation of energy balance and adiposity. His PhD project explored how signaling metabolites, such as lactate, affect body weight and energy homeostasis. This line of research uncovered major overlooked methodological problems that can confound the study of metabolites. More specifically, it revealed that factors related to the administered metabolite solutions, rather than the metabolites per se, can drive the “anti-obesity” effects of metabolites in animals. This is illustrated by the profound sickness response (i.e. loss of appetite and weight loss) seen when laboratory animals are treated with severely hypertonic solutions of metabolite salts (PMID 37055619). Alongside his work on metabolites, Jens investigates why some individuals easily gain weight while others are protected against obesity. This work involves studies across the weight spectrum and the preliminary findings from research in mice challenge the prevailing idea that obesity is primarily driven by hedonic overeating.
ECO2026 Award Presentations
The awards will be presented at the 33rd European Congress on Obesity (#ECO2026), taking place in Istanbul from 12–15 May 2026. Attendees are warmly invited to join the New Investigator Award Session on Wednesday 13 May at 11:30 in Hall 6 at the Istanbul Congress Centre, where the awardees will present their work. Registration and further details are available: https://eco2026.org
Pour plus d'informations sur les critères et le processus de candidature au Prix d'excellence en obésité et aux Prix des nouveaux chercheurs, veuillez consulter le site https://easo.org/about-easo/easo-nnf-prize-and-awards/.
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