The American Society for Nutrition has issued its Jean-Pierre Habicht Lifetime Achievement in International Nutrition Award to Maureen M. Black, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
As a pediatric psychologist, Dr. Black has made significant contributions to the intersection of child development and nutrition. Her extensive research on early childhood development laid the groundwork for the Nurturing Care Framework, a roadmap to to helping children around the world survive and thrive. The report was been adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2018, and advanced globally by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank Group. Dr. Black was also a key leader in developing the Global Scales for Early Development, a WHO-led population-based scale to evaluate children’s development globally.
At the University of Maryland, Dr. Black chaired the division of growth and nutrition in the department of pediatrics from 2003 to 2021. For 25 years, she also served as director of the interdisciplinary Growth and Nutrition Practice, an initiative to support children with growth and feeding problems. Additionally, she led the Maryland site of Children’s HealthWatch, a national program that studies how material hardships relate to the health and development of young children.
Dr. Black is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, where she double-majored in mathematics and computer science. She holds a master’s degree in occupational therapy and psychology from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Emory University in Atlanta.