Purnima Menon
Purnima Menon is the Senior Director for Food and Nutrition Policy at IFPRI and, as of January 2025, the Acting Director for Transformation Strategies. She works closely with IFPRI’s leadership to shape the institute’s global research strategy. A specialist in evaluating large-scale nutrition, health, agriculture, and food systems programs, Menon has contributed to over 200 peer-reviewed publications and major global reports, including the Lancet Series on Nutrition, Countdown to 2030, and the Global Nutrition Report. She actively bridges research and policy, designing and leading policy engagement initiatives. Menon is a founding member of the Next Gen(d)eration Leadership Collective and received the 2020 Nevin Scrimshaw Mid-Career Award in Global Nutrition. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI and a Research Associate at Cornell University. Based in India, she collaborates globally to advance nutrition policy and practice.
The Salata Institute
The Salata Institute supports interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action, including high-risk/high-reward projects by researchers already working in the climate area and new endeavors that make it easier for Harvard scholars, who have not worked on climate problems, to do so. Faculty interested in the Climate Research Clusters program should note an upcoming deadline for concepts on April 1, 2024.