Michael Goran, PhD is a Professor of Pediatrics at The Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, which is affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is Program Director for Diabetes and Obesity at The Saban Research Institute and he holds the Dr Robert C and Veronica Atkins Endowed Chair in Childhood Obesity and Diabetes. Dr Goran also serves as Co-Director of the USC Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute. Dr Goran is a native of Glasgow, Scotland, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, UK (1986) prior to postdoctoral training in the US (1987 to 1991). He previously served on the faculty of Medicine at the University of Vermont (1991 to 1994), the Department of Nutrition Sciences at UAB (1994 to 1999), the Department of Preventive Medicine at USC (1999 to 2018) prior to joining Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.

His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health and other Foundations for the past 30 years during which he has raised almost $50m in funding to support this work. He has published over 350 professional peer-reviewed articles and reviews. He is the Editor of the "Childhood Obesity: Causes, Consequences and Intervention Approaches" published in 2017, co-editor of "Dietary Sugars and Health"published in late 2014, and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Pediatric Obesity. He has been the recipient of a number of scientific awards for his research and teaching, including: The Nutrition Society Medal for Research (1996), The Lilly Award for Scientific Achievement from The Obesity Society (2006), The Bar-Or Award for Excellence in Pediatric Obesity Research, from The Obesity Society (2009), the TOPS award for contributions to obesity research from The Obesity Society (2014), and the Rank Prize Lecture in Nutrition (2018).

Michael lives in Silverlake, Los Angeles with his wife Lori, a film editor, his 2 teenage daughters, and their cat, Hugo Moon. Outside of work, Michael likes to play tennis, and hang out with his family which typically involves cooking, eating, going on walks and travel.