Justin is a resident in the UC San Diego General Preventive Medicine Program and is concurrently earning his MPH from San Diego State University. As part of the Lifestyle Medicine track, he will be eligible to be board-certified as a Lifestyle Medicine Physician and Intensivist upon graduation.
He previously completed an internal medicine residency with the Yale Primary Care program, where he led several Lifestyle Medicine initiatives. These included creating a virtual plant-based nutrition and culinary medicine curriculum for residents and physician assistant students, performing research on this curriculum&#8217;s effects, which won several awards and was recently published in a special edition of Nutrients, and leading the Inpatient Plant-Based Menu Committee’s initiative to create a WFPB hospital menu for the inpatient cardiology service and hospital cafeteria.
Justin has served in various positions on the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Trainees Executive Board since 2018, and currently serves as President, working on Lifestyle Medicine offerings for students and trainees, expanding the reach of Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups and Residency Curriculum sites and helping to develop a platform to facilitate tailored Lifestyle Medicine mentorship opportunities.
As an adjunct to his training, he completed the eCornell Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate course, and Lifestyle Medicine clinical rotations at Dr. McDougall’s Health and Medical Center&#8217;s immersion program, Loma Linda University and Dr. Wayne Dysinger’s Lifestyle Medical practices.
His professional goal is to move Lifestyle Medicine and plant-based nutrition forward at a systems level by partnering with thought leaders across disciplines to create effective programming with the highest impact. He is actively looking for employment opportunities upon his graduation in June 2024.
Outside of his professional interests, he enjoys plant-based cooking, interval training, running, traveling, and freestyle rapping.

Justin Charles, MD