Dr. Tarek K.A. Hamid is a Stanford- and MIT-trained expert in system dynamics, with a deep interest in human metabolism and energy regulation. He holds a Master's from Stanford and a PhD from MIT and is a professor of System Sciences at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, where he received the Faculty Performance Award for excellence in research and [...] a career spanning four decades, Dr. Hamid has applied systems thinking to a wide range of complex challenges-from NASA's project management practices to economic performance and, more recently, health and obesity. His interest in weight regulation took off in the mid-1990s when he recognized striking parallels between human metabolism and the kinds of feedback-driven systems he had spent years studying. This led him to further studies at Stanford, where he later became an affiliate of the university's Medical Informatics [...] 2009, he published Thinking in Circles about Obesity (Springer), an academic book exploring the obesity epidemic, which earned a "Highly Commended" distinction from the British Medical Association's Book Awards.A few years later, he led the Systems Inspired Global Obesity Study (SIGOS), an international research effort involving scientists from seven countries. The study uncovered widespread misconceptions about weight gain, weight loss, and how people-both laypersons and healthcare professionals-misjudge obesity risks.