For her extensive contributions to the field of maternal-child nutrition, Kathleen Rasmussen, professor of nutritional sciences in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, received the March of Dimes Agnes Higgins Award at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting Oct. 29 in San Francisco.

Established in 1980, the award honors Higgins, an innovator with the Montreal Diet Dispensary who greatly advanced the understanding of proper nutrition as a crucial factor in healthy pregnancy and prevention of low birth weight in infants.

"As someone who has devoted my career to this particular topic, it is immensely satisfying to be recognized by my colleagues with this honor," Rasmussen said.

In remarks at the APHA meeting, Barbara Abrams, professor at the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health, called Rasmussen "a rigorous researcher, a gifted teacher, and a tireless and passionate advocate for maternal nutrition."

Rasmussen, who came to Cornell in 1978 as a postdoctoral trainee, focuses on maternal nutrition and its links to pregnancy outcomes, lactation and infant development. Among the notable findings of her and her students is that interventions to improve a pregnant woman's nutritional status can increase the volume and enhance the composition of her milk once her baby is born, aiding the infant's nutritional status. As a result of this work, the World Health Organization changed its policies regarding vitamin A supplementation for nursing mothers. Rasmussen's lab has also shown that women who are overweight or obese at conception have problems establishing and maintaining breastfeeding and have babies who are heavier at one year of age than those of normal-weight women.

Rasmussen's influence extends beyond the lab to teaching and service to her field. Since 1987 she has acted as program director for Cornell's Training in Maternal and Child Nutrition program, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. For 30 years, she has taught a graduate course on maternal and child nutrition and, more recently, an undergraduate course on public health nutrition. Rasmussen has also trained more than 60 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows in maternal and child nutrition. In 2006, she was the first recipient of the Excellence in Nutrition Education Award from the American Society for Nutrition.

In 2009 Rasmussen led a committee of doctors and public health and nutrition experts to review and update the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for weight gain during pregnancy. She has also served as president of the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation and as president of American Society for Nutritional Sciences (now the American Society for Nutrition).

"Kathy Rasmussen is a giant in the field," said Patrick Stover, director of Cornell's Division of Nutritional Sciences. "From the NIH-sponsored training program that she has directed for more than two decades at Cornell, to the numerous committees of the Institute of Medicine that she has served on and/or chaired, no one has done more to advance maternal and child nutrition and train the next generation of academics in this field than Professor Rasmussen."

Ted Boscia is assistant director of communications for the College of Human Ecology.