Jessica Fanzo

Biography

Jessica Fanzo, Ph.D., is Professor of Climate and the Director of the Food for Humanity Action Collaborative at Columbia University’s Climate School in New York City. Prior to joining Columbia in 2023, she was the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food Policy and Ethics at Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Fanzo has held significant positions at renowned institutions, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN), the UN World Food Programme, Bioversity International, the Earth Institute, the Millennium Development Goal Centre at the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. She has been an active participant in numerous collective endeavors, such as 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 2. Additionally, she served as the Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report and was the Team Leader for the UN High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Systems and Nutrition.

Currently, Professor Fanzo leads the development of the Food Systems Dashboard and the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. She earned her Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of Arizona and completed the Stephen I. Morse postdoctoral fellowship in Immunology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In recognition of her contributions, Professor Fanzo was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2024. She was also the first laureate of the Carasso Foundation’s Sustainable Diets Prize in 2012 for her groundbreaking research on sustainable food and diets for long-term human health.