Professor Ernesto Pollitt

Professor Ernesto Pollitt, Professor of Human Development, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, is selected to receive this Award for the remarkable progress in understanding the important and often permanent effects of food on the learning and behavior of children. He was the first to demonstrate the effect of even subclinical iron deficiency on cognitive performance of young children. Through field studies in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Peru, he defined the conditions under which the effect is permanent. As a result iron deficiency in early children is now recognized a s an important cause of permanent scholastic impairment of underprivileged children internationally he has profoundly influenced the policies of UNESCO, UNHCR, WHO, World Bank, and national governments.