David Allison, Ph.D., professor in the department of biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, has been named associate dean for science and director of the newly established Office of Energetics, which will study how the body takes in and spends energy. Allison will step down as head of the section on statistical genetics July 1, 2011, and begin his duties as associate dean.

Allison is a Distinguished Professor of statistical genetics and director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center; he joined the UAB faculty in 2001. Previously, he was a research scientist at the NY Obesity Research Center and associate professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Allison received his doctorate from Hofstra University in 1990 and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the NIH-funded New York Obesity Research Center at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center.