INF
Ricardo Uauy, M.D., Ph.D.
President, INF
Irwin H. Rosenberg, M.D.
Ricardo Uauy, MD, PhD, trained in Pediatrics at Harvard and Yale and obtained his PhD at MIT under Dr. Scrimshaw. Dr. Uauy has been a leader throughout his career in international nutrition and, among other roles, has served as Director of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA) in Chile, Advisor to several United Nations agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Chairman of the United Nations ACC/SCN Advisory Group in Nutrition, and President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). Dr. Uauy has been deeply committed to the INF since its inception in 1982, serving as an INF Board Member, Co-Chair of INF Fellowship Program, and Vice President for Capacity Building.
Board Chair, INF
Editor-in-Chief, Food and Nutrition Bulletin
Dr. Irwin Rosenberg, the Jean Mayer University Professor of Nutrition at Tufts University, earned his M.D. at Harvard Medical School in 1959. Dr. Rosenberg has been on the INF Board since 1988. He succeeded Nevin Scrimshaw, founding editor of the FNB, as Editor-in-Chief in 1998. Throughout his career, Dr. Rosenberg has participated in many national and international nutrition policy efforts. He was Chair of the Food and Nutrition Board and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1994. Since joining Tufts, Dr. Rosenberg served as Dean of the Friedman School for nine years and Director of the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) for 15 years.
Currently, in addition to his role with the FNB, Dr. Rosenberg directs the Nutrition and Neurocognition Laboratory at the HNRCA. Dr. Rosenberg’s research interests include nutrition and aging; folate and micronutrient malnutrition as a global problem; relationship between homocysteine, B vitamin nutriture, vascular disease and age-related cognitive decline.
Shibani Ghosh, Ph.D.
Executive Director, INF
Michelle Badash, M.S.
Shibani Ghosh, PhD is the Executive Director at the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation (INF) and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Dr. Ghosh is a nutritionist with over 10 years experience in the area of public health nutrition. Her research interests include effects of amino acids on health and nutrition in developing countries, improving complementary foods (fortification and bio-fortification) for prevention of malnutrition in children aged 6-24 months, translation of innovative basic and clinical sciences research into applied evidence based community interventions, nutrition and agriculture linkages and the role of nutrition within global agenda and issues related to capacity building.
Dr. Ghosh has extensive experience working in the Middle East, West Africa and South Asia. Prior to joining the INF, she has worked as a Research Fellow at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas in Aleppo, Syria.
Managing Editor, Food and Nutrition Bulletin
Michelle Badash, M.S., is the Managing Editor of the Food and Nutrition Bulletin, the journal publication of the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation.
Ms. Badash has over 15 years of experience as an editorial director and writer in the public and private sectors. Her special interest is global health, and she has developed a wide range of print and web publications that communicate international health issues to scientists, healthcare professionals, and consumers.
Previous experience includes media and recruitment for a scientific research center, managing development publications for an international NGO, and directing the development of international health content for a healthcare internet company. She has won three awards from the American Medical Writers Association for excellence in healthcare writing.
Nilupa Gunaratna, Ph.D.
Statistician and Senior Manager, INF Operations
Dr. Nilupa Gunaratna joined INF in 2007 and is the INF Statistician and Senior Manager, Operations.
Gary Gleason, Ph.D.
Director of Communications and Associate Editor, Food and Nutrition Bulletin
Dr. Gleason is the Director of Communications and Associate Editor for the Food and Nutrition Bulletin. He is also Project Director of the Iron Deficiency Program Advisory Service, (IDPAS), a proactive international service supporting developing country-based projects and research dealing with iron deficiency.
Dr. Gleason undertakes INF international technical assistance and advocacy missions on iron deficiency and nutrition policy and also does international work in areas of program communication and HIV/AIDS prevention. His background includes 14 years as a professional staff member of UNICEF and FAO where he was based in Ghana, Nigeria, Turkey, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Outside his work for the INF, Dr. Gleason's consults on nutrition, communication, HIV/AIDS, research and evaluation for UN agencies, international NGOs, regional development banks and bilateral agencies. Dr. Gleason has a doctorate in Mass Media and Communication from the University of Iowa.
Devika Suri, M.S., M.P.H.
Junior Program Officer, INF
Ms. Suri acquired an interest in international nutrition while working for a year on an evaluation of a child nutrition and health program at an NGO in India, which inspired her to attend the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
While a student, Ms. Suri began working at INF part-time as a program assistant in 2007. She gained further international nutrition field experience during a 2-month internship studying the dual problem of obesity and underweight in school-children in Panama. After graduating with a Masters in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition and a Masters of Public Health in January 2009, she joined the INF staff full-time as a Junior Program Officer.
Ms. Suri helps coordinate the INF Fellowship Program, assists in research and data analysis, manages grants and keeps the INF office and website functioning smoothly. Most recently, she co-presented (with Dr. Ghosh) two posters at the International Congress of Nutrition in Bangkok.
Assistants
Meagan Hardy, M.S., M.P.H.
Editorial Assistant, Food and Nutrition Bulletin
Meagan Hardy graduated from the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science of Policy in 2009 with a Master's degree in Food Science and Applied Nutrition. She currently works as the Editorial Assistant and resides in Shanghai, China.
Jessica Hochstadt
Subscriptions Assistant, Food and Nutrition Bulletin
Jessica Hochstadt is a student at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science of Policy, concentrating in Nutrition Communication.
Nicholas Strutt
Research Assistant, INF
Nick Strutt is a student at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science of Policy and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, doing a dual-degree in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition and Political Economy.
CeSSIAM
Noel W. Solomons, M.D.
Director of CeSSIAM
Scientific Director and co-Founder of CeSSIAM and INF Executive for Central America, combined with a Salvadorean biochemist (Dr. Oscan Pineda) and two Guatemalan physicians (Dr. Fernando Beltranena, Dr. Gustavo Hernandex-Polanco) to found the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism on July 1, 1985. He has guided the Center to a scientific agenda that includes diet and chronic disease, patterns of complementary feeding, iron status and anemia, and the safety of oral iron therapy. He is Chair of the IUNS Task-Force on Diet, Nutrition and Long-term Health.
Research Fellows
Dr. Orozco is a post-doctoral fellow with CeSSIAM, having worked with CeSSIAM since 2001. She is currently sharing time in collaboration with an appointment at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala City and focusing on issues of the effects of iron on colonic health. This is based on a novel technique developed during her PhD studies at the University of Manitoba, where she was a an INF/EMF Fellow.
Dr. Vossenaar has been working as a post-doctoral fellow with CeSSIAM since 2005. She first came to CeSSIAM in 1998 when she was a master student at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her doctoral work at the University of Dundee, Scotland was a collaboration study with CeSSIAM in which concordance with the 1997 WCRF/AICR recommendations were examined in several countries. Her research focuses on dietary and lifestyle habits in diverse populations in relation to cancer prevention, and dietary patterns in schoolchildren of Quetzaltenango and children attending day care centers in Guatemala City.
Ms Montenegro-Bethancourt is a research nutritionist fellow with CeSSIAM, having worked with CeSSIAM since 2000. She completed a Maaters of Science in Life Sciences with emphasis in International Health at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam in 2006. He research focuses on dietary patterns in schoolchildren of her home city of Quetzaltenango as well as assorted inquiries into hematological status, vitamin D status, health delivery and nutritional genomics in the Quetzaltenango setting.
Ms. Hernandez has been working with CeSSIAM since 1999 on various research projects, including one on chronic diseases in urban settings of Guatemala, the Kraft Project, and the complementary feeding projects. She is currently working on a paper comparing complementary feeding patterns in children in a rural village.. In 2005, Ms. Hernandez completed a 4-month internship at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, USA, with Dr. Odilia Bermudez. There, her activities included analysis of food databases from the Puerto Rican Project.
Maria-Eugenia "Sheny" Romero-Abal, BSc
Possibly the longest running "CeSSIAMcita", Ms. Romero-Abal has been working with CeSSIAM since 1989. A licensed laboratory technician, Ms. Romero-Abal began her tenure at the Center mostly helping out with lab work, and has been involved in projects such as the involving micronutrients (vitamin A, iron, and zinc). She is also involved in data analysis for several CeSSIAM studies. Ms. Romero-Abal sometimes supervises students that come to work with CeSSIAM, and is, in fact, currently a student herself, working on her Master's in Public Nutrition at the Universidad de San Carlos.
Ms Alvarado has been associated with CeSSIAM since 2004, having completed her graduation thesis at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin on the topic of abdominal circumference in schoolchildren. She completed a Masters degree in International Public Health Nutrition at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands with a project on the reproducibility of self-reported weight, height and body image in Guatemala. She is currently working on programs of maize consumption.
Ms Mayorga, a research nutritionist Fellow, has been with CeSSIAM since 1998, when she performed her graduation thesis on the topic of body composition among lactating women in Alta Verapaz. She also worked on carotenoid content of breast milk before leading the field interviewers for the Guatemalan Concordance project. She is currently working on the programs on maize consumption with Viki Alvarado and Maria José Soto.
Ms. Campos has been working at CeSSIAM since 2000 when she became a research nutritionist fellow.. From 2001 to 2006, she was involved in the Zinc Project, and also completed her student thesis during this time. Ms. Campos is responsible for organizing contacts for projects, as well as collecting, entering and analyzing data for many CeSSIAM projects. She is currently involved with writing a paper for the rural segment of the Complementary Feeding project.
Ms. Soto began working with CeSSIAM in 2007 as a nutrition student working on her thesis at the Universidad Rafael Landivar. Since March 2008 she has been working at CeSSIAM, helping coordinate Masters students’ field research, making arrangements, and assisting with data entry. She has also been working with Ms. Mayorga and Ms. Alvarado on the day-care center research projects, and is currently involved with the Complementary Feeding Project.
Ms. Crowley is a January 2009 graduate of the Boston University School of Public Health, with a concentration in International Health. She first came to CeSSIAM for five weeks in March and April of this year, and has returned to stay from June through August. Ms. Crowley will be assisting Ms. Montenegro and Ms. Alvarado in the two Summer Projects: a study on the Non-invasive Screening of Hematological Status Project and Assessment of Prevalence of Asymptomatic Giardiasis in Day-Care Center Settings.
