Coming Almost Full Circle: A Career in Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
Abstract
Careers in food and nutrition can lead you on multiple paths and through numerous, diverse experiences. You are only limited by how far and where you want to travel. This talk will walk you through one journey that started in segregated Houston, TX and traversed academia, public health, a Congressional select committee, federal government programs and research, international fellowship, and the nonprofit sector.
Bio
Dr. Ellen W. Harris is the Executive Director for the Institute for Food and Development Policy, better known as Food First. Dr. Harris earned a BS in Biology from Antioch College, MS in Nutrition Sciences from Texas Woman’s University at Houston, and a DrPH with an emphasis in public health nutrition and epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health at Houston. She taught Community Nutrition at Drexel University for 6 years. For two years, she was a Congressional Fellow with the Select Committee on Hunger, US House of Representatives through the Congressional Black Caucus. That experience led her to USDA in 1990 where she spent almost 33 years with the Food and Nutrition Service, the Human Nutrition Information Service, and the Agricultural Research Service; retiring in 2021 as a Senior Executive Service Associate Area Director. Always one to multi-task, Dr. Harris was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Zimbabwe in 2001 and a Fulbright Senior Specialist in 2009 at the School of Nutrition, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Columbia. She, also, served as a Senior Nutrition Advisor for the Collaborative Research Support Program, Bureau for Food Security, USAID in Uganda, and Nepal 2010-2011. Dr. Harris was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She resides in Greenville, MS. She is a mother, a grandmother, and a certified yoga instructor and Thai Yoga massage practitioner, who aspires to grow much of her food year-round at her Three Blessings Yoga Farm and Wellness Center.