Marion Nestle

Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell.  She earned a PhD in molecular biology and an MPH in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016).

Her previous faculty positions were at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. From 1986-88, she was senior nutrition policy adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services and editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health. Her research examines scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, with an emphasis on the role of food marketing.

She is the author of ten books, among them the prize-winning Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002), Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (2003), What to Eat (2006), Eat, Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics (2013), Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning) (2015), and a book she co-authored with Malden Nesheim, Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics (2012)

She also has written two books about pet food, including Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine (2008) and Feed Your Pet Right, also co-authored with Madlen Nesheim (2010). Her most recent book is Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat in fall 2018

Among her recent honors are the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College in 2010, the Public Health Hero award from the University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley in 2011, the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2013, and the Innovator of the Year Award from the U.S. Healthful Food Council, and the Public Health Association of New York City’s Media Award in 2014.  In 2016, her book, Soda Politics, won literary awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), and she was elected to membership in the Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society. She was honored with a Trailblazer Award from the IACP, the Grand Dame Award from Les Dames d’Escoffier, and Cherry Bombe’s Hall of Fame in 2018.

From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle food section. She blogs daily (almost) at www.foodpolitics.com, and tweets @marionnestle (named by Time Magazine, Science Magazine, and The Guardian as among the top ten in health and science). She currently has more than 140,000 Twitter followers.