Gail HARRISON
PhD, UCLA Fielding, School of Public Health, CA, USA
Gail Harrison, PhD current serves as Professor, Dept. of Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health and Senior Research Scientist for the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Dr. Harrison’s research career has been devoted mostly to issues basic to optimizing nutritional status for women and children, both in the US and internationally. This work has focused both on problems of undernutrition and on obesity, and on methodological issues related to body composition and to dietary assessment in various populations. Her earliest research focused on maternal obesity and effects on newborn body composition.
Throughout the 1980s, Dr. Harrison served as chair of the Scientific Coordinating Board for a USAID-funded major study of the functional effects of mild to moderate undernutrition. This involved about 400 field and laboratory workers in three countries plus the US. The effort resulted in more than 150 publications and still serves, as a public use dataset, the basis for ongoing research. In the US, Dr. Harrison’s recent policy-related work has involved regular collaboration (nationally and locally) with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and other child nutrition programs.
Dr. Harrison received a Bachelors of Science degree in Foods and Nutrition from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Masters in Nutritional Sciences from Cornell University and a PhD in Biological Anthropology from the University of Arizona.