Dr. Christopher Golden is an Assistant Professor of Planetary Health and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. As an ecologist and epidemiologist, his research investigates the nexus of trends in global environmental change and human health.

He received his BA from Harvard College where he created his own curriculum integrating courses in ecology, medical anthropology and development studies. He then received two graduate degrees from UC Berkeley: an MPH in Epidemiology with a focus in Nutrition, and a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management focusing his studies in wildlife ecology and ecosystem services.

Since 1999, Dr. Golden has been conducting environmental and public health research in Madagascar where he created a local non-profit (501c3) research organization called MAHERY (Madagascar Health and Environmental Research).

Dr. Golden is also the Associate Director of the Planetary Health Alliance, working to create a community of practice for those interested in the field across academia, NGOs and government institutes.

My keynote presentation will focus on the following questions:

1) What are the current role of fish and other seafood in maintaining macro and micro-nutrient nutrition for populations around the world;

2) How will projected changes in global fish stocks affect human nutrition; and

3) Which populations have the greatest nutritional vulnerability to changes in the status of fisheries? One of the centerpiece products of this effort will be an analytic framework and architecture that will allow decision-makers to calculate the health implications of different marine management strategies at a variety of scales from local to global. I will highlight a range of case studies to estimate shifts in burdens of disease for particular populations associated with decreased access to seafood in the diet (e.g., Madagascar, Bangladesh, Cambodia, coastal British Columbia, and others). I will also discuss the role of aquaculture and fisheries management in supporting human nutrition.