Dr. Rafael Perez Escamilla

Biography

Rafael Pérez-Escamilla is a Professor of Public Health and the Director of the Office of Public Health Practice at the Yale School of Public Health. He leads the Global Health Concentration and is the Principal Investigator at the Yale-Griffin CDC Prevention Research Center. His research primarily focuses on global public health nutrition, with a particular emphasis on food security and maternal, infant, and young child nutrition. Pérez-Escamilla has made significant contributions to the improvement of breastfeeding practices and has addressed iron deficiency anemia in infants, as well as household food security issues. His work in health disparities research assesses the impact of community health workers in enhancing behavioral and metabolic outcomes for vulnerable communities. A prolific author, he has published over 240 research articles, as well as three books and numerous technical reports. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, having been elected in 2019, and served on the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine from 2012 to 2018. His expertise has been sought by prestigious organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, an MS in Food Science, and a PhD in Nutrition from the University of California at Davis, where he also received postdoctoral training focusing on the link between nutrition and early childhood development.

Research Interests