Professor Bhavani Shankar

Department of Geography

Professorial Research Fellow in Food and Health

Professor Bhavani Shankar
Profile picture of Professor Bhavani Shankar
b.shankar@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Professor Bhavani Shankar
Department of Geography
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
Profile

Bhavani works on research areas at the intersection of food, health and environmental sustainability. He joined the Institute of Sustainable Food and the Department of Geography in April 2020. From 2011 to March 2020, Bhavani was Professor at SOAS University of London, and has previously also held appointments at the University of Reading and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Bhavani’s recent work has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Leverhulme Trust, UKRI, GCRF, UKAid and the European Commission, among others. He co-leads the Food Consumption, Health and Sustainability Pillar of the Institute for Sustainable Food at Sheffield and serves on the editorial advisory boards of the journals Global Food Security and Food Policy.

Research interests

Bhavani’s current research interests include sustainable diets, climate and nutrition-sensitive food systems, food and nutrition policy evaluation and inequities in food systems and nutrition. Much of his work is of an interdisciplinary nature, conducted in collaboration with nutritionists, geographers and health, agricultural and environmental scientists. 

Current externally funded projects:

GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub: The Action Against Stunting Hub conducts research in India, Indonesia and Senegal aimed at addressing the intractable global challenge of child stunting.

Healthy Soil, Healthy Food and Healthy People: H3 is a UKRI-funded project identifying workable paths towards transformed UK food systems, delivered via a series of interventions: on farm, in food manufacturing, distribution and retail.

Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture for Nutrition Actions (IMMANA): IMMANA aims to stimulate the development of novel methods and metrics for research linking agriculture and nutrition. It is co-funded by FCDO and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS): SHEFS is a programme aiming to provide policy makers with novel, interdisciplinary evidence to define future food systems policies that deliver nutritious and healthy foods in an environmentally sustainable and socially equitable manner. This LSHTM-led project is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers