Dr Bharati Kulkarni takes over as Director of ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition

Hyderabad: Dr Bharati Kulkarni, an esteemed physician-scientist took over as the new Director at the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) on Wednesday.

Dr Kulkarni has a specialization in paediatrics from Pune University and has a Master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA. She has earned a doctoral degree from Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

According to an ANI report, she served as a scientist at ICMR-NIN for more than 20 years and for the past three years, she has been holding the position of Head, of the Division of Reproductive and Child Health and Nutrition at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi.

She has conceptualized and led several large multi-centric research projects on important public health nutrition problems, especially in the domain of maternal and child nutrition, including anaemia, childhood undernutrition, developmental origins of health and disease, body composition, community-based interventions to promote diet diversity, agriculture - nutrition linkages.

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The evidence generated by these studies has contributed to strengthening health and nutrition policies and programs. She has also contributed to the conceptualization and initiation of ICMR's multi-site National Health Research Priority projects for improving complementary feeding for young children, upgrading norms for the growth and development standards for Indian children, and reducing anaemia and stillbirth.

She has received several research grants from national and international funding agencies. She has authored more than 130 publications in high-impact peer-reviewed international journals, several book chapters and policy documents, news agency ANI reported.

She is a recipient of oration awards in honour of Dr Rajammal P Devadas and Dr PG Tulpule and is a fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, India.

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