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Lora Iannotti

Lora Iannotti

Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professor

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Iannotti is the inaugural Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professor at WashU Bursky School of Public Health and founding director of the E3 Nutrition Lab. Her lab aims to identify nutrition solutions that embrace principles embodied in the three E’s: equity, environment and evolution. Iannotti leads projects in Ecuador, Haiti and Madagascar, where she collaborates with local partners to test innovative approaches to achieving sustainable, healthy dietary patterns that improve the growth and brain development of young children. Her research related to animal-source foods has informed the global discourse on nutrition equity, climate change and planetary boundaries, which are the limits that critical processes must stay within to maintain a stable and resilient Earth.

Iannotti is co-director of the Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM) at WashU School of Public Health and director of Planetary Health at WashU’s Center for the Environment. She has served on and provides expert advice to global working groups that inform policy on maternal and child nutrition, including the World Health Organization Guidelines Development Group for Complementary Feeding, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s initiatives related to animal-source foods and human health, and the USAID Feed the Future Fish Innovation Lab. Iannotti received a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Master of Arts in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia

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Achieving sustainable diets with nutrition equity
Nutrition & Wellness

Achieving sustainable diets with nutrition equity

One of the planet’s greatest challenges is nourishing all of humanity while protecting the health of the planet itself. In a commentary published in the journal One Earth, Lora Iannotti, a professor at the Brown School, discusses how nutrition equity for vulnerable groups is vital in this effort.
Iannotti speaks during UN nutrition event
Awards & Notables

Iannotti speaks during UN nutrition event

Lora Iannotti, associate professor at the Brown School and an expert on maternal and child nutrition, spoke during a panel discussion in June about the launch of the UN Nutrition discussion paper on livestock-derived foods and sustainable healthy diets.
First ever global scientific eating plan forgets the world’s poor

First ever global scientific eating plan forgets the world’s poor

The EAT-Lancet report has done an important job in bringing global attention to the question of how to sustainably feed the world’s growing population. But now it needs to take the next step and fully incorporate the perspectives of the poorer people in developing and emerging economies and of the vast emerging global middle classes.
WashU Experts on the Climate Assessment
Science & Technology

WashU Experts on the Climate Assessment

Washington University in St. Louis experts from all corners of academia long have been studying climate change in the context of their own fields. Here is a sampling of their perspectives on the National Climate Assessment released Nov. 23.
Eggs significantly increase growth in young children
Humanities & Society

Eggs significantly increase growth in young children

Eggs significantly increased growth and reduced stunting by 47 percent in young children, finds a new study from a leading expert on child nutrition at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. This was a much greater effect than had been shown in previous studies.
Humanities & Society

Three years after catastrophic earthquake, Haiti remains stricken with poverty, disease

Lora Iannotti, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, was working in Haiti when an earthquake devastated that country three years ago this month. She has been back to Haiti 10 times since Jan. 12, 2010, and says the country is “literally aching for public health expertise, yet not one public health degree program exists anywhere.”
Humanities & Society

One year after Haiti earthquake, Brown School public health expert Iannotti continues work on the ground

On Jan. 12, 2010, Lora Iannotti, PhD, nutrition and public health expert at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, was in Leogane, a seaside town 18 miles west of Port au Prince, Haiti, working with local officials on improving the health of Haitian children. That’s when a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake struck the poverty-stricken country. Its epicenter, Leogane. Iannotti survived, but some 230,000 perished. Haiti was devastated; an estimated 3 million were affected by the earthquake in a country already known as the poorest in the Western hemisphere. Since last January, Iannotti, assistant professor at the Brown School, has returned to Haiti a number of times to continue her work on undernutrition and disease prevention in young children. She is back in Haiti again, one year later.