Judy McLean isn’t just any professor you may bump into on campus—she works for the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations.

McLean will be spending her Olympic break in Cambodia working with the WHO on “improving child health, nutrition and food security.” Her work is focused on “the development, implementation and assessment of cost-effective evidence based means of addressing malnutrition among young children, adolescents and reproductive-age women and improving pregnancy outcomes.”

McLean earned her BSc and PhD in Human Nutrition from UBC. She teaches World Problems in Nutrition (FNH 355), and Advanced International Nutrition (FNH 490), which focuses on the “analysis of the political, social and cultural complexities of food habits and malnutrition in various cultures around the world.”

McLean also works as an advising consultant on nutrition and food security and promotes nutrition education at the post-secondary level in developing countries.

She plans to use the “train the trainers” model right down to the village level to create more peer nutrition educators.

“There is a desperate need to get a critical mass of people trained in order to effectively address the widespread malnutrition and for these trained persons to educate their fellow Cambodians and Rwandans,” she said.

Looking forward, McLean’s 20-year plan includes “building an international nutrition program here at UBC, which would be the only program of its kind in North America.”
“[Working] towards impacting policies at the governmental level that can reduce malnutrition among large numbers of women and children.”

For students who want to venture into her field, she suggests, “Get involved…go as high up the ladder as you can. But more importantly, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can save the developing countries you visit.”

McLean is modest about her work. “It is hard to see anything I have done as an accomplishment, because I have just been lucky.”

When asked about her greatest accomplishment thus far, she said, “Being a mother.”

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...