Nutrition expert Marion Nestle to speak at School of Public Health convocation

Marion Nestle will address the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Class of 2025 at their convocation ceremony on Wednesday, May 21, at 9 a.m., EDT. The ceremony will be held at the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus, on the Homewood Field, and also streamed online.

Nestle has been one of the most prominent voices in the field of food policy and public health for decades. She currently is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, in the department she chaired from 1988 to 2003. She served as editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, the first federal report on food policy. The author, co-author, or co-editor of 15 books, she was a monthly columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from to 2008 to 2013. Three of Nestle's books have received the James Beard Foundation Award: Food Politics (2003), What to Eat (2007), Soda Politics (2016).

The Bloomberg School Class of 2025 includes an expected 1,198 graduates from 61 countries, including the U.S. Of these, an expected 136 will receive doctoral degrees and 1,077 will receive master's degrees. They will set out as the U.S. and the world face emerging and ongoing public health challenges. The Class of 2025 will join a network of more than 28,000 Bloomberg School alumni in 115 countries.

The Convocation ceremony will also feature Ellen J. MacKenzie, BSPH '75 (ScM), '79 (PhD), who is scheduled to step down as dean of the Bloomberg School after this academic year, and Bloomberg School student and faculty speakers. The Bloomberg School has been ranked the No. 1 school of public health based on peer ratings in U.S. News & World Report since the rankings began in 1994.

Raised in New York City and then in Los Angeles, Nestle often ate canned foods as a child and was unaware she could eat the avocado growing in the tree in her family's Los Angeles backyard. After earning a PhD in molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, she taught and researched nutritional science at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine.

Nestle returned to school to get a Master of Public Health from Berkeley at age 50. Her first post-MPH job was senior nutrition policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role she served as editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's report, which emphasized the importance of reducing fat from the American diet. Shortly after the report's release, Nestle realized the food industry would pivot to manufacturing low-fat, high-sugar products. Much of her subsequent research and writing examined the scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, with a focus on the food industry's role in the mix.

Nestle became the chair of what was then NYU's home economics department in 1988. During her tenure, she directed the department's focus to nutrition and food studies.

Nestle has received many honors during her career, including the James Beard Leadership Award (2013); the Public Health Association of New York City's Media Award (2014); and the Edinburgh Medal for Contribution to Science and Humanities (2023). The University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health recognized her as a National Public Health Hero in 2011 and as one of Berkeley's School of Public Health's 75 most distinguished graduates in 75 years in 2018.

Nestle spoke at the 2024 Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington, D.C., in December.