Professor Wim H.M. Saris MD, PhD

Role: 
Professor Emeritus Human Nutrition at the department of Human Biology
Year Fellowship awarded: 
2021
Organisation: 
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Science Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Professor Wim H.M. Saris MD, PhD is Professor Emeritus Human Nutrition at the Department of Human Biology, at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Science Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Having graduated from Wageningen University with an MSc in Human Nutrition in 1974, He studied Medicine at Radboud University in Nijmegen where he got his MD degree in 1978. There he was awarded a PhD in 1982 for work on aerobic power and daily physical activity in children aged 4 – 18 years.

He then moved to Maastricht University as Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Biology. In 1984, he was appointed as Professor of Human Nutrition. In 1992, he initiated the Nutrition and Toxicology Research Institute NUTRIM at the university and was the scientific director till 2005. From 2005 till 2014, he was part-time Corporate Scientist Human Nutrition at DSM, Food Specialties biotech division in Delft. From 2009 -2016 he was Scientific Director of the Nutrition and Health program at the Top Institute Food and Nutrition (TIFN) Wageningen. In 2014 he received the Dutch Royal Distinction of Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau

He served many national and international committees among others the Dutch Health and Nutrition Council and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), chairing the committee on Nutrition, the European Technology Platform (ETP) initiative “Food for Life” and was the first chairman of the EU Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) “Healthy diet for a healthy life”. He recently stepped down as president of ILSI Europe in Brussels.  Since 2016, he is emeritus professor Human Nutrition at the Maastricht University.

He published over 500 papers, reviews, book chapters and books, dealing with topics like nutrition, energy metabolism, exercise physiology in particular sports nutrition, cancer cachexia, functional foods and nutrigenomics.