Senior Nutrition Scientist
Food Fortification Initiative
Health pathways covered by Helena
Health talks covered by this speaker
Governance and accountability for fortification
About this Speaker
Public health nutritionist with over 20 years of experience in applied research and programs to address malnutrition with a special focus on developing countries. My research interests are in two main areas: food-based approaches to address malnutrition, and infant and young child nutrition.
In terms of food-based approaches, I worked for several years at the intersection of agriculture and nutrition with crop biofortification: naturally breeding staple crops to have higher nutrient levels. I did this work at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia.
Currently, I support industrial fortification: adding vitamins and minerals to staple foods as they are processed for human consumption. I do this in my capacity as Senior Nutrition Scientist for the Food Fortification Initiative in Atlanta, USA.
In infant and young child nutrition, I have had a long-standing commitment to developing, improving and providing training and technical support to ProPAN, a tool used globally to assess and plan infant nutrition interventions.
I completed my nutrition training at Cornell University and my public health education at Harvard University. I hold an appointment as Research Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. I am also a member of Emory’s graduate faculty in the nutrition and health sciences doctoral program.