Vanessa Mello Rodrigues is the Brazil in-country coordinator for the Food Policy Program. She helps local partners design and promote advocacy strategies to the implementation of food policies towards healthy environments. Vanessa is a Registered Nutritionist holding both Ph.D. and a master’s degree in nutrition from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Brazil. As a Newton Fund Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UFSC she coordinated collaborative projects related to increasing vegetable consumption among vulnerable populations and supporting local farmers. She worked at the British Heart Foundation Centre on Population Approaches for NCD Prevention at the University of Oxford as part of her Ph.D. and was a Marie-Curie Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Bournemouth University both in the UK. Vanessa is a member of the Brazilian Alliance for Healthy and Adequate Food and of the Nutrition in Foodservice Research Centre (NUPPRE). She participated in the FOPL and labeling regulatory process as an expert on issues concerning nutrient profiling models, and different aspects of packaged food labeling. Her research and work interests are mainly related to policy aspects of health promotion and nutrition, with particular attention to the improvement of food labeling and the prevention of overweight and obesity among children.
