Mandana Arabi is a Medical Doctor with a PhD in Nutrition Sciences from Cornell University. She has worked for more than a decade in public health nutrition, first as a nutrition adviser with the Ministry of Health and the World Bank in Iran, and later as a child nutrition adviser with UNICEF Headquarters in New York. She is an expert in international nutrition and has facilitated nutrition programming in more than 15 countries dealing with the double burden of over- and under-nutrition. She has been a co-author on various global guidance documents including the UNICEF Infant and Young Child Programming Guide and the WHO Indicators for Infant and Young Child Feeding.

As the Founding Executive Director of The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences, she is leading a global initiative to develop a research agenda for nutrition science and to build a public-private partnership with the academia, non-profits, government bodies, and corporations to work together to advance research and implement the research outcomes in policy and program development.

**In early 2015, Mandana joined the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) as the Director of the GAIN Business Platform for Nutrition Research**