Les Dames d’Escoffier International named Marion Nestle the fifteenth recipient of its prestigious Grande Dame Award, which bestowed annually, honors extraordinary achievements in food, beverage, and hospitality professions. Nestle  will receive the award at the Gala Dinner at the LDEI Annual Conference in Seattle, Wash. on Friday, Oct. 12.

Marion joins the esteemed ranks of the following Grande Dames: Lidia Bastianich, Joan Nathan, Dolores Cakebread, Nathalie Dupree, Shirley Corriher, Alice Waters, Marcella Hazan, Rosemary Kowalski, Abigail Kirsch, Jerry Anne DiVecchio, Edna Lewis, Madeleine Kamman, Anne Willan, and Marion Cunningham.

Nominated by the New York Chapter, Marion Nestle, PhD is an internationally recognized researcher, degreed nutritionist and author who has been named by Forbes Magazine as number two of “the world’s seven most powerful foodies.” Known worldwide for her vast nutritional knowledge and passionate food advocacy, she has been called a food fighter for her efforts in establishing a food movement that calls on people to leverage food for political change.

Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, emerita, at New York University (NYU), in the department she created and chaired from 1988-2003, and from which she retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University. Marion is the author of six prize-winning books: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health; Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety; What to Eat; Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics (co-authored with Dr. Malden Nesheim); Eat, Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics; and Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning). From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle. She blogs at foodpolitics.com. She is currently working on her newest book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, scheduled for publication in October 2018. Among her many honors and awards: John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service, Bard College; Public Health Hero Award, University of California School of Public Health at Berkeley; James Beard Foundation Leadership Award; Innovator of the Year Award, U.S. Healthful Food Council; City & State Reports’ Responsible 100 Award in Food Politics; Academy of Culinary Nutrition’s Top 50 Food Activists; and Public Health Association of NYC’s Media Award. In 2016, Soda Politics won awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is a member of numerous editorial and journal advisory boards including Cooking Light, Eating Well, Gastronomica, Journal of Public Health Policy, The Lancet Advisory Board, Journal of Culinary Science & Technology. She is a member of the New York Chapter.