Left to right: Bent Egberg Mikkelsen , Lindsay Allen, Francesco Branca, Graham MacGregor, Walter Willett, Mary Shawa: six speakers at Rio2012

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The participant-speakers profiled

Bent Egberg Mikkelsen is a Danish citizen. He works in the department of nutrition at the National Food Institute of the Danish Technical University. He also is associate professor at Copenhagen University. He has been guest editor for Workplace Health Management, and is an associate editor of our sister journal Public Health Nutrition.

Lindsay Allen is a US citizen, and an Association founding member. She is vice president of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). She serves on the advisory group on agriculture and nutrition for the UN Millennium Development Goals, the WHO Nutrition Expert Advisory Group panel on assessment of vitamin A and iron status, and the WHO technical group on nutrient profiling. She has served on eleven committees of the UN Institute of Medicine Food and Nutrition Board. She has advised many national, bilateral and international organisations including WHO, UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, PAHO and FAO.

Francesco Branca is an Italian citizen. He is currently the director of the department of nutrition for health and development at the World Health Organization (WHO) and as such responsible for its Nutrition Expert Advisory Group (NUGAG). Previously, he was president of the Federation of the European Nutrition Society, and a senior scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition Research Institute. He was President of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies, 2003-2007.

Graham MacGregor is a British citizen. He is professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician at Barts and The London Hospitals, and formerly consultant physician at St George's Hospital, London. He is publicly best known as an effective campaigner. He established and is chair of Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) in 1996 and World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) in 2005. He is also chairman of the Blood Pressure Association, is on the board of the World Hypertension League, and was president of The British Hypertension Society. s

Walter Willett is a US citizen, and an Association founding member. He is the most cited nutrition scientist in the US. He is professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and serves on its Food and Nutrition Board). He is best known as a outspoken and successful campaigner against the now-abandoned US Food Guide Pyramid, and the presence of industrially-generated trans-fatty acids in processed foods. .

Mary Shawa is a citizen of Malawai, She has worked in clinical nutrition and dietetics since 1990, and has been a consultant in nutrition for WHO. Between 1979 and 2004 she has worked with the Malawi Ministry of Women and Child Development. She has also participated in international societies, and initiatives such as the UN task team for Scaling Up Nutrition.

We will be featuring more speaker-participants next month and in April, the month of our congress. For the full list of confirmed speakers, click here. Stay tuned for more information on Facebook and Twitter!