High-Level Transdisciplinary Steering Committee

Dr. Adam Drewnowski is a world-renowned leader in the study of obesity and social disparities in diets and health. He is Professor of Epidemiology and the Director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the School of Public. He is also the Director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research, which addresses the environmental, social and economic aspects of the obesity epidemic. Dr. Drewnowski is Adjunct Professor of Medicine and is a Joint Member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Dr. Drewnowski obtained his MA degree in biochemistry at Balliol College, Oxford, and a PhD degree in psychology at The Rockefeller University in New York. Following post-doctoral training at the University of Toronto, he returned to The Rockefeller University as Assistant Professor. He later moved to the University of Michigan, where he became Professor of Public Health, Psychology and Psychiatry and Director of the Program in Human Nutrition at the School of Public Health, University of Washington. He moved to Seattle in 1998.

Dr. Drewnowski' is the inventor of the Nutrient Rich Foods Index, which rates individual foods based on their overall nutritional value, and the Affordable Nutrition Index, which helps consumers identify affordable healthy foods. He has conducted extensive studies on taste function and food preferences, exploring the role of fat, sugar, and salt on food preferences and food cravings. His studies on bitter taste genetics have explored consumer acceptance of bitter phytochemicals in vegetables and fruit. Dr. Drewnowski has been the leader in studies of spatial epidemiology of diets and health, using innovative GIS approaches to study the geographic distribution of food spending, diet quality and obesity rates. Dr. Drewnowski has served on the Standing Committee to Prevent Childhood Obesity of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and is a public trustee of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). He is the author of over 200 research papers, numerous reviews and book chapters, and a frequent participant and invited speaker at scientific meetings, conferences, and symposia. Dr. Drewnowski has advised government and international agencies, foundations, and think tanks.

Dr. Drewnowski's interests are in characterization of dietary patterns, nutrition economics, spatial distribution of obesity rates, and the development of new metrics to identify foods that are nutrient dense, affordable and sustainable.

Darren Dahl is a full Innovation council professor in the Marketing Division of the Faculty School of Business at the University of British Columbia. He has a background in marketing (Ph.D) and accounting (B.Comm). Dr. Dahl is the Senior Associate Dean Director of the Robert H. Lee Graduate School. His areas of teaching cover marketing management/strategy, to marketing research, to consumer behaviour, to new venture design/entrepreneurship, and creativity. Dr. Dahl’s research focuses on new product development and adoption, creativity, emotions in consumption contexts, social influence, and social marketing. He is accomplished in his field having been invited to present at over 80 research talks around the world and having participated in many more presentations and conferences. Dr. Dahl’s has done editorial work for many renowned journal articles such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and the Journal of Marketing Education, to list a few. In addition, Dr. Dhal has many awards and distinctions for his teaching, scholarship work, and public service. 

Schumacher is a Founding Board Chair and Vice President of Wholesome Wave. From 1997 to 2001, he served as President Clinton’s Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at USDA.

Prior to this, Schumacher served as Administrator of USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, worked as a senior Agri-lender for the World Bank, and served as Commissioner of Food and Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After Harvard College, he studied at the London School of Economics and was a research associate in agribusiness at the Harvard Business School, working with Professor Ray A. Goldberg.

Schumacher was a member of the 21^st Century Sustainable Agricultural Task Force of the National Academy of Science whose report was published in 2010. In 2007, Schumacher jointly oversaw the preparation of the Task Force Report of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, titled “Modernizing America’s Food and Farm Policy: Vision for a New Direction” (2008). He has received leadership awards from the James Beard Foundation and the EOS Foundation. 

Dr. Sievenpiper completed an MSc and PhD in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto under Prof. Vladimir Vuksan. He then sought opportunities to complement his clinical research training, completing a 4 year Doctor of Medicine (MD) at St. Matthew’s University, School of Medicine with clinical rotations across England and Scotland. Dr. Sievenpiper resumed his research training, completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship (PDF) under Prof. David JA Jenkins at the University of Toronto from 2007-2009. Dr. Sievenpiper undertook postgraduate specialty training in Medical Biochemistry at McMaster University from June 2009 to 2014, leading to his FRCPC certification in Medical Biochemistry. Dr. Sievenpiper is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, where he holds the PSI Foundation Graham Farquharson Knowledge Translation Fellowship. He is also a Consultant Physician in the Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism; Scientist in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and Knowledge Synthesis Lead in the Toronto 3D Knowledge Synthesis & Clinical Trials Unit at St. Michael’s Hospital. His current research interests focus on using meta-analytical techniques and randomized controlled trials to investigate diet and disease relationships. He has been appointed to the Expert Committees of the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) 2013 Clinical Practice Guidelines for Nutrition Therapy, the European Association for the study of Diabetes (EASD) 2015 Clinical Practice Guidelines for Nutrition Therapy, the 2015 Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Dyslipidemia Guidelines Update, as well as the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) for a scientific statement on sugars. Dr. Sievenpiper has authored over 100 scientific papers, 12 book chapters, 118 abstracts, and 26 successful grant applications. His work has been cited more than 1700 times for an h-index of 25.

Kees de Graaf is the Chairman Division of Human Nutrition and Professor in Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour at Wageningen University.  He is an expert in human nutrition. Dr. de Graaf’s work focuses on nutrition and health, odours, feeding behaviours, feeding habits, flavor compounds, taste research, sensory sciences, psychology, and sensory evaluation. He has designed many projects that focus on a multitude of topics relating to nutrition. His projects range from finding ways to encourage children to eat more healthily; gaining an understanding of oral processing behavior and food texture perception dynamics; understanding taste migration and taste perception; pairing satisfaction with satiation; gaining insight on the properties of commonly consumed foods; understanding how food and brain influence each other (Food Experience System, FES) and designing effective emotional nudges that make a healthy product more attractive to consumers. Dr. de Graaf is also involved in innovative use of double emulsions as fat replacers; in designing an integrated approach for food, fiber and health; and developing novel protein foods that elderly need and will want. His work on the EU funded project SPLENDID also looks at developing personalized guidance systems for eating and physical activity behaviour for the prevention of obesity and eating disorders. Lastly his team looks at how women with breast cancer that were treated with or are currently going through chemotherapy experience diet changes, quality of life and physical activity, to then provide them with guidelines on how to prevent certain changes (Change of Body Composition in BReast Cancer, COBRA). 

Michel Nischan is a three-time James Beard Foundation award winning celebrity chef with over 30 years of leadership experience advocating for a more healthful, sustainable food system. He is Founder & CEO of Wholesome Wave, Co-Founder of the Chefs Action Network, as well as Founder and Partner with the late actor Paul Newman of the former Dressing Room Restaurant. He and his Wholesome Wave team were successful at influencing legislative language for the recently passed Federal Farm Bill, supporting affordable access to healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables for low-income consumers. He’s also the author of three cookbooks and a variety of articles focused on sustainable food systems and social equity through food. A lifetime Ashoka fellow, Nischan serves on the board of the Amazon Conservation Team, and The National Young Farmers Coalition. 

Dr. Prabhu Pingali is a full professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences of Cornell University. His background is in Economics (Ph.D. and M.A.) with a minor in statistics. At Cornell, he holds several teaching positions: he is the Professor of Applied Economics and Management and the Director of the Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative (2013 – present); professor of Nutritional Sciences (2013 – present), International Professor of Applied Economics and Management (2013 – 2016); and he is a Faculty Fellow at the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Prior to joining Cornell as a fully accredited professor, Dr. Pingali has served in many leadership roles as the Deputy Director of Agriculture Development for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the director of the Agriculture and Development Economics Division of the FAO; and as the Director of the Economics Program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, to name a few.

Dr. Pingali has over 15 years of experience in public service and 150 publications in the fields of nutrition, sustainability and economics. 

Professor Raghunath teaches post- graduate and doctoral courses in Alliance Management, Strategic Networks, Corporate Strategy, E-Business Strategies and Models and Strategic Management in the Media and Entertainment Industry, leads IIMB executive programmes on Senior Leadership Coaching, Strategic Issues in Alliances, Outsourcing, Negotiations, Strategic Leadership of IT Companies and General Management Programme for Media and Entertainment Industry. He was also a Visiting Professor at INSEAD, France; HEC Paris; EUROMED, Marseilles; University of Buckingham, UK; RMIT School of Business; Melbourne, Australia.

His research focuses on MNC Headquarter-Subsidiaries Relationships, Structuring and Managing Alliances and Joint Ventures, Issues In Managing Outsourcing, Role of Independent Directors in Company Boards, Managing and Sustaining Growth of IT Companies in India and Cloud Computing, Online Business Models and Strategies, Strategic Management in Media and Entertainment. He was engaged in the study of strategy making in high-tech companies in USA such as Cypress Semiconductors Inc., Intel, Motorola, MIPS. He has conducted studies on Business Process Initiatives in American Express Insurance and Investment Division, San Rafael, California.

Professor Raghunath was engaged in the study of strategy-making in high-tech companies in USA such as Cypress Semiconductors Inc., Intel, Motorola, MIPS. He has conducted studies on Business Process Initiatives in American Express Insurance and Investment Division, San Rafael, California. He has been a strategy implementation consultant to MNCs and Indian firms such as GE, Cisco, LG CNS, Weir India, METRO Cash and Carry, Mahindra FES, AFC.

Professor Raghunath is on the Board of Directors of National Venture Capital Fund, India Satcom, K Two Technologies, Weir India and HAL-Tata Joint Venture and ex-officio member of the IIMB Board of Governors. He is a Registered Consultant with the Office of Project Services, UNDP, New York.

Richard Black was with PepsiCo from January 2013 to March 2016 as Vice President of Global R&D Nutrition Sciences, leading PepsiCo’s dynamic nutrition team to develop and drive a nutrition strategy that fuels PepsiCo’s innovation and portfolio transformation through nutrition science. Richard and his team worked closely with PepsiCo’s sector R&D organizations and the Global Nutrition Group to leverage nutrition science for the PepsiCo brands. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Richard worked for Mondele’z International, where he served as Vice President, Nutrition & Chief Nutrition Officer. He brings a wealth of leadership and technical expertise from the consumer packaged and pharmaceutical industries to PepsiCo. In his twenty-year career, Richard has held nutrition and health and wellness leadership positions at Nestle, Kellogg’s, Novartis, and Kraft with a focus on dairy, sports nutrition, and micro/macro ingredients. In addition, Richard was an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Nutrition Sciences. Richard has also served on Health Canada Advisory panels, developing policies on health claims and addition of micronutrients in food. He holds his PhD in Psychology of Eating Behaviour and has a dual BS degree in Chemistry and Psychology from McMaster University.  

Richard I. Levin, MD FACP, FACC, FAHA is currently President and CEO of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation. He is concurrently an Emeritus Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at McGill and in the Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology at New York University.

After completing his tenure as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Vice-Principal for Health Affairs at McGill University in Montreal in 2011, he served a sabbatical year as Senior Scholar in Residence at the Association for Academic Health Centers in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Levin earned a B.S. in Biology with Honors from Yale University in 1970 and graduated from the NYU School of Medicine where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha in 1974. He was Senior Chief resident in Internal Medicine at Bellevue in 1997-1998, completed a cardiology fellowship at NYU and then a postdoctoral fellowship in vascular biology at the Specialized Center for Research in thrombosis at Cornell University Medical College.

He has been a national board member and officer of numerous professional U.S. organizations. Before taking on his position at McGill in September of 2006, Dr. Levin was the Vice Dean for Education, Faculty and Academic Affairs, and a Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. For twenty-five years, he practiced cardiology at Bellevue Hospital where he is currently an Attending Emeritus. In Canada, he was President of the Council of Deans of the Faculties of Medicine of Quebec and Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Resident Matching Service.

Dr. Levin’s scientific interests include endothelial cell biology, the prevention of atherothrombotic events, the neurobiology of empathy, the reformation of academic health centers for the support of personalized medicine and patient-centered care, and the role of the new information technologies in medical education and practice.   

Samuel Godefroy is a full professor in Food Risk Analysis and Regulatory Systems in the Department of Food Sciences at Université Laval, Québec, QC. He is a Food Regulatory Expert at both, the Domestic and International Level. Dr. Godefroy has over 13 years of experience as a food regulator and leader of science based organizations. He currently serves as the Senior Expert Advisor on Food Standards, for China’s National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (2015-2020) as part of the 523 Capacity Development Program – People’s Republic; an as a Senior Food Regulatory Advisor for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). He previously served as a Senior Food Regulator at the Executive level and was the former FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission Vice-Chair (2011-2014). Dr. Godefroy has first hand experience in managing and leading multi-disciplinary research and science-based organisations – from 10 to 400 team members- with a focus on result-based operational performance. He demonstrates strong leadership in mobilizing teams and in developing and sustaining partnerships domestically and internationally to support research and capacity development in food safety and nutrition program delivery and standard setting.  Dr. Godefroy’s areas of teaching and research focus on food science, food risk analysis, food regulatory development, food safety capacity building, food allergen management, and contaminants in food. He is interested in the roles enabling partnership development, international collaborations, research management and academic excellence in diverse and multi-disciplinary environments. 

Dr. Vilas Shirhatti has over ten years of teaching and academic research experience at institutes like National Chemical Laboratory, India; Johns Hopkins University and National Institutes of Health in USA. He has twenty-five years of Industrial research and technology experience in companies like Dai-Ichi, Hindustan Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, General Electric, Godrej Consumer products, Marico Limited and Birla Research and Lifesciences. During these years he established Technology centers and competencies, sate of the art laboratories and manufacturing facilities, global sourcing strategies, lead strategy development teams, green teams to reduce carbon foot prints and launched various consumer products taking them all the way from concept to commercialization. He has many publications in international journals and chapters in books. Dr. Vilas has widely traveled globally for technology transfers.

With a background in Chemistry (B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D, Post-Doc), Physics (B.Sc.) and Math (B.Sc.) his work and research focuses on: Analytical Chemistry; Fats, oils, oleochemicals and surfactants technology; Products and process technology, packaging technology, and services in the area of Oral, Skin, hair, fabric and hard surface cleaning; Cosmetics; Products and services; Food technology and general nutrition; Sports nutrition, Nutraceuticals and dietary supplements; Wellness products and services; Ayurvedic products and services, Regulatory and product stewardship; product performance, and safety evaluations.

Dr. V. Prakash is a distinguished scientist of CSIRIndia and Honourable Director of Research, Innovation and Development and Management at JSS-MVP, Mysore, India and Scientific Panel Chair, Nutritionals and Nutraceuticals Panel FAASAI, Govt. of India. He is also President of the International Society of Nutraceuticals and Nutritionals and Naturals (ISNNAN), India. In addition he is also President, Academy of Nutraceuticals, Nutritionals and Naturals (ANNAN), India and Vice President and member of Governing Council of International Union of Nutritional Sciences. He is working as Chairman, FAO panel on food losses and food wastes, Rome, Italy; Executive Editor of Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture Wiley, UK.

Dr. Prakash is the Chairman, Research Advisory Committee of Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Cochin, India, Chairman Task Force on Nutritionals and Nutraceuticals in International Union of Nutritional Sciences and Chairman, Advisory Board of NuFFooDS Magazine, India.

Dr. Prakash has more than 210 research papers in National, International peer reviewed journals. He has more than 530 presentations in National and International seminars, symposia and conferences as Keynote speaker, convocation addresses, lead speaker and Inaugural talks and Chairman. He is the author of 4 books and is the famous author of “Book on Spices” and 24 review chapters in books and journals in addition to more than 55 patents to his credit including patents in US and Europe. He has guided nearly 50 Ph.D. and Master’s students together.

Currently he is engaged in molecular research of nutraceuticals, nutritionals and bioactives as well as on policy matters including regulatory policies and preventing food losses and reaching out of nutrition through food and nutrition security underpinning food safety both in India and at global level with the backdrop of food science, food technology and food processing.