Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted

Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted was the Director for Nutrition, Health and Food Security Impact Area Platform, CGIAR until early this year. She was previously the Global Lead for Nutrition and Public Health at WorldFish. She was awarded the 2021 World Food Prize for her ground-breaking research, critical insights, and landmark innovations in developing holistic, nutrition-sensitive approaches to aquatic food systems. She was awarded the 2021 Arrell Global Food Innovation Award for research innovation. 

She is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub and a member of the Food Systems Advisory Board of the UN Food Systems Hub. She was a member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). She was Vice Chair of the UN Food Systems Summit 2021: Action Track 4 - Advance Equitable Livelihoods, and also a Food Systems Champion. In 2022, Shakuntala was appointed co-chair of the EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission. Shakuntala holds a PhD from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark. She holds Honorary Doctorates from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and The University of the West Indies.