Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
EMERITUS HONOR Scrimshaw to Receive 1991 World Food Prize The World Food Prize for 1991-an international honor recognizing individual achievement in improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world-has been awarded to Dr. Nevin S. Scrimshaw, MIT Institute Professor Emeritus. It is the first time in its five-year history that the prize, given for accomplishments in food and agriculture, is being awarded for contributions in the area of nutrition. The previous laureates have been botanists or biologists cited for increasing the world's food supply. Dr. Scrimshaw, who currently directs the Food, Nutrition and Human Development Program for the United Nations University of Tokyo and serves as a member of Harvard University's Center for Population Studies, will receive the prize in a ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 14. The prize includes a cash award of $200,000 and a sculpture by world-renowned designer Saul Bass. John Ruan, chairman of The World Prize Foundation, said that while previous prize recipients had been honored for their contributions in the production of food, "we now acknowledge achievements in the area of nutrition." "Dr. Scrimshaw's revolutionary accomplishments toward alleviating malnutrition in developing countries have made a substantial difference toward improving the lives of millions of people," Dr. Ruan said. Dr. Scrimshaw, in a statement distributed by the foundation, said, "This award provides an opportunity to focus on the issue of world hunger. Despite significant scientific and medical advances, it is somewhat disheartening that global hunger continues to plague society." Dr. Scrimshaw, who has both medical and PhD degrees, came to MIT in 1961 as professor of human nutrition and head of a new Department of Nutrition and Food Science. In 1976 he established the International Food and Nutrition Planning Program at MIT, which provided training in nutrition research for scientists in developing countries. In 1980, as Institute Professor, he began research on the functional consequences of iron deficiency and developed methods for getting iron into the diets of people in underdeveloped countries. Today he remains one of the principal advisors to international and national organizations in the field of food and nutrition. He retired from MIT in 1988. When Dr. Scrimshaw was named to receive the first James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award in 1972, the selection committee said that he was "not only a researcher of extraordinary accomplishment, but also a distinguished administrator and teacher, a scientist whose career exemplifies the ideal of science as a search for human answers to the most basic of human needs." Dr. Scrimshaw, who lives in New Hampshire and maintains an office in Cambridge, has received numerous awards, including one earlier in the summer, the 1990-91 Alan Shawn Feinstein Merit Award for Public Service.