The George G. Graham Lecture | Johns Hopkins | Bloomberg School of Public Health

George G. Graham was named a visiting pediatrician at Baltimore City Hospital in 1961 and was subsequently appointed Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1968. Among his many accomplishments, Graham was the founding director of the Department of International Health’s Division of Human Nutrition in 1976. In addition to his work at the School of Public Health, Graham also served for 29 years as director of the Institute for Nutrition Research in Lima, which he established in 1961.

In 1937 at the age of 14, Graham enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and his medical degree. In addition to an internship and residency in pediatrics at the British-American Hospital in Lima, Peru, Graham was also acting medical director from 1961 to 1965 at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Graham was a pioneer in developing new approaches for treating and preventing malnutrition in young children, especially during infancy and early childhood. He also was an early voice in warning of the long-term consequences of eating fatty meat on the heart and blood vessels, and of the link between obesity and convenience foods, noting the significant effects seen across low-, middle-, and high-income contexts.
During the 1980s, Graham was a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Task Force on Food Assistance. He also was appointed to the advisory and editorial boards of the National Academy of Science, National Institutes of Health and American Institute of Nutrition, testified multiple times before Congress, and received the American Medical Association’s Joseph Goldberger Award, the American Academy of Pediatric’s Borden Award, and the Peruvian Pediatric Society’s E. Leon Garcia Award. Graham authored more than 250 scientific publications during his career.

Graham formally retired in 2001. His legacy includes a diversified and strong program in human nutrition, as well as the George G. Graham Professorship of Infant and Child Nutrition, which was established in his honor in 2005.

2018 - 10th Annual
Kelly Brownell, PhD, MS
Duke University
"Can Nutrition Research Change Social Norms and Policy?"

2016 - 9th Annual
Benjamin Caballero, MD, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Department of International Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
"Blindness, Weight Fluctuation, and Chronic Disease in Cuba: A Twenty Year Natural Experiment”

2014 - 8th Annual
Lambert H. Lumey, MD, PhD, MPH
Columbia University
Richard L. Hall, PhD
Nutritionist, Retired VP,McCormick & Co, Inc.
Navigator, 493rd Bomb Group, US 8th Army Aircorps
Operation Chowhound (Manna)
"The Long Shadow of the Dutch Famine of 1944-1945"

2013 – 7th Annual
Bruce Ames, PhD
University of California, Berkeley
"Micronutrients for Life throughout Life"

2012 – 6th Annual
Michael Golden, MB, Bch, BAO, FRCP, FRCPCH
University of Aberdeen
"Malnutrition: Fundamental Lessons When Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"

2011 - 5th Annual
Andrew Prentice, PhD
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
"From Bench to Bush in Designing Nutrition Interventions: Avoiding Snakes and Climbing the Ladders"

2010 - 4th Annual
Ricardo Uauy, MD, PhD
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
"Nutrition and Linear Growth: Advancing the George Graham Legacy”

2009 - George G. Graham Inaugural Symposium
Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the WHO Monograph Interactions of Nutrition and Infection

Charles B. Stephensen, PhD, MS
USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center
“Effects of Malnutrition on Risk of Infection”

Claudio F. Lanata, MD, MPH
Instituto de Investigación Nutricional, Lima, Peru
“Effects of Infection on Nutritional Status”

Robert E. Black, MD, MPH
Department of International Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
“The Way Forward”

Carl E. Taylor, MD, DrPH
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Professor Emeritus
Nevin S. Scrimshaw, MD,PhD, MPH
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Emeritus
“How Interactions of Nutrition and Infection was written… A conversation by Drs. Nevin Scrimshaw and Carl Taylor”

2007 – 2nd Annual
William C. MacLean, Jr, MD, CM, FAAP
The Ohio State University
“Guiding Public Health with Small Nutritional Studies: Lessons of 25 Years in Peru”

2006 - 1st Annual
Kenneth H. Brown, MD, MPH
University of California, Davis
“Food Fortification to Improve Young Children’s Nutrition in Low-Income Countries: Hope or Hype?”