Chevese Turner, BA, FAED

Chevese Turner is an internationally recognized leader, educator, and advocate whose career has been defined by a singular commitment: ensuring that people with eating disorders, in particular those most often overlooked or misdiagnosed, receive the informed, equitable, and weight-inclusive care they deserve. With more than two decades of experience spanning advocacy, clinical education, organizational leadership, public policy, and systems change, she brings an unmatched depth of expertise to her work as the Founding Partner and President of the Eating Disorders Education Institute (EDEI).

Chevese’s field-shaping contributions began in 2008, when she founded the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), the first national organization dedicated solely to Binge Eating Disorder awareness, advocacy, and education. During her decade at BEDA’s helm, she championed the successful inclusion of binge eating disorder in the DSM-5 in 2013, launched the first national Weight Stigma Awareness Week (which she co-founded with Dr. Wendy Oliver-Pyatt), and served as a thought leader for federal agencies including the NIH, HHS, EEOC, DOJ, and SAMHSA. She led BEDA’s strategic merger with the National Eating Disorders Association in 2018, then served as NEDA’s Chief Policy and Strategy Officer, overseeing the integration of BEDA’s programs with a focus on access to care, public policy, and equity. Earlier in her eating disorders career, she co-owned and directed operations at Pershing Turner Centers for Eating Disorders in Annapolis, Maryland, bringing her leadership directly into clinical practice settings.

A prolific speaker and published author, Chevese has presented at leading conferences and institutions across the country and internationally, including the Academy for Eating Disorders International Conference, the Renfrew Conference, the TriState Eating Disorders Conference, MEDA, and institutions ranging from Johns Hopkins University and Nova Southeastern University to the U.S. Department of Justice. She co-authored Binge Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery and Beyond (Taylor & Francis, 2019) with Amy Pershing, LCSW, ACSW, CCPT-II, EDCS and contributed a chapter on BED advocacy to A Clinician’s Guide to Binge Eating Disorder (Taylor & Francis, 2013). She has been a consistent voice in public and professional discourse on the intersections of weight stigma, anti-fat bias, diet culture, trauma, and eating disorders care.

Chevese’s organizational and governance leadership in the field is extensive. She has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), held multiple roles within the Academy for Eating Disorders including the Board of Directors, holding the  Experts by Experience Portfolio, and Co-Chair of the DEI Advisory Committee, and has been an advisor to Within Health and Families Empowering and Supporting Treatment for Eating Disorders (FEAST). She is a Founding Board Member and Treasurer of the Mid-Atlantic Collaborative for Eating Disorders (MAC) and serves on the Executive Committee of the Collaborative of Eating Disorders Organizations (CEDO). She is also a board member of the Haystack Project which is dedicated to ensuring patient access to treatment options for the rare and especially ultra-rare community, and most recently was invited to a Board Member position for Project Heal, an organization dedicated to removing financial, systemic, and healthcare barriers to eating disorder treatment. In recognition of her sustained and distinguished contributions to the field, Chevese was awarded the Meehan-Hartley Award for Public Service and Advocacy by the Academy for Eating Disorders in 2015 and was conferred as a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (FAED), the organization’s highest honor, in 2026.

EDEI is the culmination of Chevese’s career-long conviction that closing the provider knowledge gap is not simply a clinical priority, it is a matter of equity, and often, of life. Built on a Delphi-validated curriculum developed with leading eating disorders experts and covering 157 priority topics, EDEI offers structured credential pathways and professional learning experiences designed to transform how clinicians and healthcare providers understand and treat eating disorders across every presentation and population. Her leadership of EDEI is grounded in the same principles that have shaped her work from the beginning: that weight-inclusive, evidence-informed, and structurally aware education—learning, done well—heals.