Dr. Bhavani Shankar, an alum from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was recently honored with the prestigious Gates Foundation Goalkeeper Champion Award. Shankar was selected for his work in increasing access and affordability of nutrient dense foods to rural markets.

The theme of the 2024 Goalkeeper Champion Awards was recognizing individuals whose work is leading the charge towards a more nourished world - a theme which fits the work of Dr. Shankar perfectly.

A 1998 Ph.D. alum from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Shankar is currently a Professorial Research Fellow in Food Systems, Nutrition and Sustainability at the University of Sheffield. His career is dedicated to the pursuit of nutrition and equitable food systems, leveraging interdisciplinary collaborations to shape the food system and deliver better nutrition outcomes in low-income populations in the context of climate change. 

“Without any exaggeration or attempt at false modesty, I can say that I could think of a hundred other people in my line of work that could have also received the recognition,” Shankar said of his surprise at the news. “So I was grateful and excited. I work with a great team, and so it was also, in a sense, a recognition for their work.”

Shankar’s work in international development took off as soon as he received his degree from Illinois. First landing at the University of Reading and then a regional office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, he joined the University of London in 2010. There, he was part of an interdisciplinary group working to develop an emerging research area at the intersection of agriculture, food systems, nutrition and health, a field that is now thriving. From there, his impact has only grown, shedding light on global challenges and impacting policy on an international level. 

In 2023, Shankar led a team of international experts in drafting the High Level Panel of Experts report for the UN Committee for Food Security (UN-CFS) on “Reducing Inequalities for Food Security and Nutrition”. The recommendations from the report fed into a year-long policy convergence process at the UN-CFS, resulting in new guidelines that will inform country-level policy development. 

In more recent years, Shankar’s work with INFUSION, a project funded in part by the Gates Foundation, has been focused on efforts to strengthen food markets in low and middle-income country settings, specifically India, attempting to understand the role that government can play in strengthening rural markets to deliver nutritious foods to the poor. 

“This work is co-designed with the government and is piloting and studying a set of innovative interventions,” Shankar explains of his work in India. “Co-design, where you are having to adjust your research agenda to the real-world constraints and priorities of the policymakers from day one, is a great challenge for a researcher - but the prize is the potential to have great impact.”

Shankar looks back on his time at Illinois with fond memories, stating his graduate program strongly shaped his career path. Having worked as a research assistant with professor John Braden on an interdisciplinary project and with professor Carl Nelson on projects that developed his scientific rigor, he considers it a launching pad for his own interdisciplinary career. 

“We had so much fun in Mumford Hall and beyond,” he shares, “and since then, I’ve never underestimated the importance of fun to doing good research.”

The Department of ACE has a strong presence in the international development space, with faculty, staff, students, and alumni working to address challenges at this intersection of agriculture, food systems, nutrition, and health. 

“I am extremely proud of the impact ACE has in international development research and outreach,” says Sarah Low, department head and professor in agricultural and consumer economics. “Dr. Shankar’s work is a primary example of the incredible things our alums go on to do, and we congratulate him on his recent accolades.”