Jessica Fanzo

Programs

• Global Food Ethics and Policy Program

Background and Education

Jessica Fanzo PhD is the Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the Berman Institute of Bioethics, and the Department of International Health of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She also serves as the Director of the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program at Hopkins, and plays key advisory roles in Johns Hopkins’ Alliance for a Healthier World on the food security and nutrition theme, as well as the Bloomberg American Health Initiative on obesity and food systems.
 
She is currently serving as the co-Chair for the Global Nutrition Report, and is the Team Leader for the High-Level Panel of Experts for Food Systems and Nutrition for the UN Committee on Food Security. She also serves on the Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets for Sustainable Food Systems.
 
Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, Jessica was an Assistant Professor of Nutrition in the Institute of Human Nutrition and Department of Pediatrics as well as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of International Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York. She also served as the Senior Advisor of Nutrition Policy at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development. Before joining Columbia University, Jessica was the Evaluation and Monitoring Officer for the REACH Interagency partnership at the UN World Food Programme in Rome Italy. From 2010-11, Jessica was a Senior Scientist at Bioversity International, a Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) center, in Rome Italy, where she led their Nutrition and Biodiversity program. From 2007-2010, she served as the Nutrition Director at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development at the Earth Institute, and the Nutrition Regional Advisor for East and Southern Africa at the Millennium Development Goal Centre at the World Agroforestry Centre in Kenya. Prior to joining the Earth Institute, she was a Program Officer for the Medical Research Program focusing on global health initiatives at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
 
Jessica has worked as an advisor, consultant, researcher and reviewer for various organizations and governments including DFAT, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), PATH, the Scaling Up Nutrition movement (SUN), the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), USAID, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
 
With fifteen plus years of research and program experience working in the field in sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, her area of expertise focuses on the multi-sectoral and system approaches to ensure better nutrition and diets concentrated in three areas: (1) on the linkages between agriculture, the environment and climate, and health to improve food systems and environments, diversity and quality of diets and nutrition outcomes (2) the importance of regaining food security and agriculture-based livelihoods in post-conflict regions through better governance and food policy and, (3) the emerging area of equitable, ethical, and sustainable diets and food systems. She was the first laureate of the Carasso Foundation’s Sustainable Diets Prize in 2012 for her research on sustainable food and diets for long-term human health.
 
 Jessica has a PhD in Nutrition from the University of Arizona and completed a Stephen I. Morse postdoctoral fellowship in Immunology in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Columbia University.