Philippe J. Giabbanelli, PhD

Project Lead, Pilot Studies Core Round 8 Awardee 
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
Northern Illinois University

Dr. Philippe J. Giabbanelli leads the Data Analytics for Complex Health Behaviors (DACHB) lab in the department of Computer Science, at Northern Illinois University. Previously, he was a full-time researcher at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in developing and applying algorithms to problems arising in health, with a focus on obesity. 

Dr. Giabbanelli has an interdisciplinary background, as he obtained degrees in both computing science and biomedical physiology from Simon Fraser University, Canada. He has published several dozen articles in a variety of venues, ranging from the Journal of Computational Science to the American Journal of Public Health.

Dr. Giabbanelli is an active member of his research community and serves as associate editor for two journals: BMC Medical Informatics & Decision Making, and Social Network Analysis and Mining. He aims to share his passion for health informatics with his students, whom he individually mentors on projects related to modelling, public health and decision-making.

Thanks to the support of the Global Obesity Prevention Center’s Pilot Studies Core, Dr. Giabbanelli conducts research on developing simulation models to enable policymakers to find efficient combination of interventions regarding childhood obesity. 

Representative publications:

• Giabbanelli, P.J., Alimadad, A., Dabbaghian, V., Finegood, D.T. Modeling the influence of social networks and environment on energy balance and obesity. Journal of Computational Science 3(1):17-27, 2012.
• Giabbanelli, P.J., Torsney-Weir, T., Mago, V.K. A fuzzy cognitive map of the psychosocial determinants of obesity. Applied Soft Computing 12(12):3711-3724, 2012.
• Zhang, D., Giabbanelli, P.J., Arah, O.A., Zimmerman, F.J. Impact of different policies on unhealthy dietary behaviors in an urban adult population: an agent-based simulation model. American Journal of Public Health 104(7):1217-1222, 2014.
• Giabbanelli, P.J., Jackson, P.J., Finegood, D.T. Modelling the joint effect of social determinants and peers on obesity among Canadian adults. Theories and Simulations of Complex Social Systems 145-160, 2014.
• Giabbanelli, P.J., Crutzen, R. Support self-management of obesity using a novel game architecture. Health Informatics Journal, 2014.