William R. Leonard

About

William R. Leonard is a biological anthropologist specializing in human biology and adaptation to environmental and social stressors. His research has extensively focused on human energy metabolism, nutritional health, and child growth among indigenous agricultural populations in highland and lowland regions of South America, including Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, as well as indigenous populations of Siberia. He investigates how these populations adapt to their ecological and social circumstances and examines the impact of transitioning to modern diets and lifestyles on their health and chronic disease risks. Dr. Leonard has also explored major trends in human evolution, such as the origin of bipedality and the expansion of hominin brain sizes, and how these have shaped human energy and nutritional requirements. His work has been supported by grants from prominent institutions including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Leakey Foundation. Currently, he serves as the Watkins Family Professor of Global Health at Northwestern University, where he is the Director of the Program in Global Health Studies and Co-Director of the Center for Global Health Education in the Havey Institute for Global Health. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Human Biology and was honored with the Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award from the Human Biology Association in 2021.

Research topics

• Endocrinology
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Statistics
• Biology
• Animal science
• Gerontology
• Data science

Selected publications

• Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

  Science · 2021 · 570 citations

  Total daily energy expenditure ("total expenditure") reflects daily energy needs and is a critical variable in human health and physiology, but its trajectory over the life course is poorly studied. We analyzed a large, diverse database of total expenditure measured by the doubly labeled water method for males and females aged 8 days to 95 years. Total expenditure increased with fat-free mass in a power-law manner, with four distinct life stages. Fat-free mass-adjusted expenditure accelerates ra…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A standard calculation methodology for human doubly labeled water studies

  Cell Reports Medicine · 2021 · 130 citations

  over this size range that agrees well with indirect calorimetry (average difference 0.64%; SD = 12.2%). We propose adoption of these equations in future studies.

  DOI

• Energy compensation and adiposity in humans

  Current Biology · 2021 · 121 citations

  This suggestion has profound implications for both the evolution of metabolism and human health. It implies that a long-term increase in activity does not directly translate into an increase in total energy expenditure (TEE) because other components of TEE may decrease in response-energy compensation. We used the largest dataset compiled on adult TEE and basal energy expenditure (BEE) (n = 1,754) of people living normal lives to find that energy compensation by a typical human averages 28% due t…

  PublisherDOI

• Variation in human water turnover associated with environmental and lifestyle factors

  Science · 2022-11-24 · 93 citations

  articleOpen access

  Water is essential for survival, but one in three individuals worldwide (2.2 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. Water intake requirements largely reflect water turnover (WT), the water used by the body each day. We investigated the determinants of human WT in 5604 people from the ages of 8 days to 96 years from 23 countries using isotope-tracking ( 2 H) methods. Age, body size, and composition were significantly associated with WT, as were physical activity, athletic status, pr…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Total daily energy expenditure has declined over the past three decades due to declining basal expenditure, not reduced activity expenditure

  Nature Metabolism · 2023-04-26 · 65 citations

  letterOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Conceptualizing the Adaptive Significance of Brown Adipose Tissue in Cold Climates

  NSF · $25k · 2015–2018

• Markets and Health: A Study of Indigenous Populations of Lowland Bolivia

  NSF · $247k · 2000–2004

• NIH Grant R21HD050776

  NIH · $268k · 2009

Frequent coauthors

• Victòria Reyes-García

  Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats

  159 shared

• Tomás Huanca

  Centro de Información y Desarrollo de la Mujer

  89 shared

• Vincent Vadez

  Diversité, adaptation et développement des plantes

  70 shared

• Ricardo Godoy

  Brandeis University

  67 shared

• J. Josh Snodgrass

  University of Oregon

  56 shared

• Susan Tanner

  54 shared

• Thomas W. McDade

  Northwestern University

  48 shared

• David Wilkie

  Wildlife Conservation Society

  42 shared

Education

• PhD, Anthropology

  University of Michigan

  1987

• MA, Anthropology

  University of Michigan

  1983

• BS, Biology

  Pennsylvania State University

  1980

Awards & honors

• Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award from the Human Bi…

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