For more than 30 years, Patrick has been engaged in scholarship, teaching and outreach, advising policymakers, and managing complex multi-country research operations on the ground. He lived 6 years in Africa (Ethiopia, Niger, The Gambia) and continues to work across Africa and Asia on issues relating to food systems transformation, food and nutrition policies, humanitarian responses, and planetary environmental challenges. He holds a PhD in Geography from Birmingham University in England and has been a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society since 1982.
Patrick’s leadership experience at senior levels includes serving as Academic Dean at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy (where he held the Alexander Macfarlane Professorship on international food and nutrition policy), agency-wide Chief Nutritionist for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Chief of Nutrition for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and Director of multiple US government-supported ‘Feed the Future’ Innovation Labs.
Currently serving on the Board of the Emergency Nutrition Network and of WorldVeg, Patrick was previously a member of the Steering Committee of the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security, and a Commissioner for the Eat-Lancet 2.0 commission. He also spent several years as a Member of the Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), and of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Food and Agriculture.
In 2024, he was awarded the 'Jean-Pierre Habicht Lifetime Achievements in Global Nutrition Research' Award by the American Society for Nutrition.
