Fernando Mönckeberg Barros

Fernando Rafael Mönckeberg Barros, born on 26 June 1926, is a Chilean physician and surgeon who specialized in nutrition and pediatrics, and who is also a professor, researcher and economist at the University of Chile. He graduated in medicine from the University of Chile in 1952 and did postgraduate work in biochemistry and teaching at Harvard University in 1958. He became an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard University Children's Hospital in 1959 and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chile in 1965, and he led the Chilean Society of Pediatrics. His research on child malnutrition in Chile led him to found the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Chile in 1972 and the Corporation for Child Nutrition, known as CONIN, in 1975. He advised United Nations bodies including UNICEF and the World Health Organization, and he received the National Prize for Medicine in 2012.