Jessica Fanzo is Professor of Climate and Director of the Food for Humanity Initiative at the Columbia Climate School. Her research focuses on the transdisciplinary field of food systems and linkages between agriculture, health, and the environment in resource-constrained, climate-impacted settings. She has twenty years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia on food system dynamics and interactions and their implications on the diversity and quality of diets, nutrition and health outcomes, environmental sustainability, and climate adaptation. She was the first laureate of the Carasso Foundation’s Sustainable Diets Prize in 2012 for her research on sustainable food and diets for long-term human health.

Previously, Professor Fanzo was the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Director of Global Food Policy and Ethics Program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and held several positions at Columbia University over the last two decades, serving as Director of the Earth Institute's Nutrition Policy at the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, Nutrition Director at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development, and roles at Columbia's Irving Medical Center and School of International and Public Affairs. She has also held positions at the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Food Programme, Bioversity International, World Agroforestry Center in Kenya, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Professor Fanzo has worked as an advisor for various international organizations including the World Health Organization, UN Standing Committee on Nutrition, World Bank, USAID, DFAT, International Food Policy Research Institute, Scaling Up Nutrition movement, and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). She also collaborates with governments to regain food security in post-conflict regions through evidence-based food policy and governance.

Professor Fanzo currently leads development of the Food Systems Dashboard and the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative in collaboration with GAIN. She has participated in numerous other collective endeavors, including the Food Systems Economic Commission, the Global Panel of Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition Foresight 2.0 report, the Lancet Commission on Anaemia, and the EAT-Lancet Commissions 1 and now 2. She was also the Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report and Team Leader for the UN High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Systems and Nutrition.

Professor Fanzo has a Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of Arizona and completed a Stephen I. Morse postdoctoral fellowship in Immunology in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.