Jessica Fanzo is a Professor of Climate and Director of the Food for Humanity Initiative at the Columbia Climate School. Her transdisciplinary research discerns and analyzes the connections between climate change and food systems in nutrition- and climate-vulnerable communities living in resource-constrained settings to identify and explore opportunities within food systems to enhance diet, nutrition, and environmental outcomes. 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. She was also elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.
Fanzo has worked as an advisor for numerous international organizations, including the International Food Policy Research Institute, USAID, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization. She also collaborates with governments to regain food security in post-conflict regions through evidence-based food policy and governance.
She currently leads the development of the Food Systems Dashboard and the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative in collaboration with the Global Alliance of Improved Nutrition, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Cornell University. She currently serves on the Integrated Partnership Board of the CGIAR, both the International LIvestock Research Institute and Alliance for Bioversity and CIAT boards, and the Executive Committee of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. She has participated in numerous other collective endeavors, including the Food Systems Economic Commission, the Global Panel of Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition Foresight 2.0 report, the Lancet Commission on Anaemia, and the EAT-Lancet Commissions 1 and now 2. She was also the Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report and Team Leader for the UN High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Systems and Nutrition.
Before joining Columbia, Fanzo was the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics. She has held positions at the UN FAO, the UN World Food Programme, Bioversity International, the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. She has also held several positions at Columbia over the last two decades, serving as the Director of the Earth Institute's Nutrition Policy at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, the Nutrition Director at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development, as well as holding roles at Columbia's Irving Medical Center and School of International and Public Affairs.
Fanzo has written two books. Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet? was published in 2021 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Her other book, Global Food Systems, Diets and Nutrition, was published in 2021 as part of the Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy.
Fanzo has a Ph.D. 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's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
