Marie T. Ruel has been Director of IFPRI's Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division since 2004, after serving as Senior Research Fellow and Research Fellow in that division starting in 1996. Since joining IFPRI, she led the Multi-Country Program on Challenges to Urban Food and Nutrition and the Global Regional Project on Diet Quality and Diet Changes of the Poor. Prior to IFPRI, she was head of the Nutrition and Health Division at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama/Pan American Health Organization (INCAP/PAHO) in Guatemala, where she worked and lived for 6 years. Dr. Ruel received her Ph.D. in International Nutrition from Cornell University and her Masters in Health Sciences from Laval University in Canada.

Dr. Ruel has worked for more than 25 years on policies and programs to alleviate poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition in developing countries. She has published extensively in nutrition and epidemiology journals on topics such as maternal and child nutrition, food based strategies to improve diet quality and micronutrient nutrition, urban livelihoods, food security and nutrition, and the development and validation of simple indicators to measure child feeding, care giving practices and food security. Her current research focuses on the evaluation and strengthening of a wide range of integrated, multi-sectoral development programs in the areas of agriculture, social protection and health, and at building the evidence on their role in reducing maternal and child malnutrition globally.

Dr. Ruel has served on various international expert committees, such as the National Academy of Sciences, the International Zinc in Nutrition Consultative Group, and the Micronutrient Forum. She led the development of the CGIAR research program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and is now a member of its Program Management Committee and leads its portfolio of research on integrated programs and policies.

Languages spoken: English, French, Spanish