News Release Distributed 03/14/14

BATON ROUGE, La – A distinguished researcher and educator will talk on improving the quality of diets across the globe on March 26 as part of an annual endowed lecture series on the LSU campus.

Lindsay Allen, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Western Human Nutrition Research Center, will deliver the Patrick Lecture at 7 p.m. March 26 in the Energy, Coast and Environment building. A reception from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the building’s rotunda will precede the event.

Allen’s lecture will cover approaches for improving the quality of the diets of people in wealthier countries such as the United States and in poorer regions of the world. She also will explore similarities and differences in efforts that are being made in these different situations.

"Dr. Allen and her work are known to professionals caring for some of the neediest, nutritionally deficient pregnant women, infants and children in countries across the globe," said Carol Lammi-Keefe, professor in the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences and chair of the 2014 Patrick Lecture. “I know she has accepted the Patrick Lectureship not for its recognition but for the opportunity to interact with current scientists as well as the next generation of nutrition scientists."

Allen also serves as an adjunct research professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the occurrences, causes and consequences of micronutrient deficiencies, primarily in developing countries.

She has documented the widespread prevalence of vitamin B-12 deficiencies and has looked at the effects of different interventions to alleviate it. She has advised many national, bilateral and international organizations, including World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

Allen’s visit to Baton Rouge is part of an annual series of lectures known as the Patrick Lecture Series – sponsored by an endowment established in 1998 by Bill and Ruth Patrick of Baton Rouge. The annual lectures bring a noted scholar with international distinction to the campus each year.

The subject of the annual Patrick Lecture alternates between human nutrition/food science and wetland sciences/coastal studies, which reflect the professional interests of the donors. The late Bill Patrick was director of the LSU Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute, and his wife, Ruth, was a food and nutrition specialist with the LSU AgCenter at the time they established the endowment.

In addition to the public lecture, Allen also will give a scientific address on the topic “Micronutrient Research, Programs and Policy; from Meta-Analyses to Metabolomics” at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center on March 25 at 11 a.m.