Ruth Charrondière, PhD

Nutrition Officer

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Dr. U. Ruth Charrondière holds a Master of Nutrition (Christian Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany), a Diploma in Applied Medical Statistics with a specialization in Epidemiology (University V, Paris, France) and a PhD in Nutrition (University of Vienna, Austria).  She has worked on food composition, biodiversity, dietary assessment, breastfeeding, sustainable diets and exposure assessment. She has worked with WHO, UNICEF and since 2002 with FAO and is since 2011 the coordinator of INFOODS (International Network of Food Data Systems). She has contributed to capacity and standard development in food composition and Total Diet Studies through teaching in many international courses, the development of the FAO/INFOODS e-Learning Course on Food Composition Data and the Compilation Tool, and many guidelines. She is also active in policy and international fora to advocate for nutrition and agriculture linkages through the implementation of nutrition-sensitive agriculture and by including local foods and biodiversity in nutrition interventions, policy, and programming, which can only be achieved if adequate nutrient composition data are available. She has published over 200 scientific articles, book chapters, technical and policy-guidance documents, and databases/tables/tools.  In 2015, Ruth received the Nevin Scrimshaw Award, the highest possible award in the area in food composition.