Marie T. Ruel is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. She was the Director of IFPRI's Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division from 2004 to 2023, after serving as Senior Research Fellow and Research Fellow in that division beginning in 1996. 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. She also led the development of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) and was a member of its Program Management Committee, where she led its portfolio of research on integrated programs and policies.

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, multisectoral development programs in the areas of agriculture, social protection, and health, and on building evidence on their role in reducing maternal and child malnutrition globally.

Prior to IFPRI, Dr. Ruel 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 six years. 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 received her PhD in International Nutrition from Cornell University and her master’s degree in Health Sciences from Laval University in Canada.

Languages spoken: English, French, Spanish