Jean Mayer (February 19, 1920 – January 1, 1993) was a renowned French-American nutritionist and the tenth president of Tufts University from 1976 to 1992. During his lifetime, Mayer was known as a leading expert and activist on hunger issues.
Mayer was born in Paris[1] the son of French physiologists Jeanne Eugenie Mayer and Andre Mayer, himself notable for being one of the founding members of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. After obtaining bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Paris, Jean Mayer served as an officer in the French Army during World War II, receiving fourteen military decorations for his heroism. After being captured by the German Army, Mayer escaped from prison and used forged papers to get into the United States.
After the war, Mayer earned doctorates from Yale University and the Sorbonne, while serving as a Food and Agriculture Organization nutrition officer in Washington, DC. Upon completion of his doctoral work, Mayer became a member of the Department of Nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health, where he taught for 26 years. In 1976, he was appointed the tenth president of Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he proceeded to establish the first graduate school of nutrition in the United States. Shortly after being appointed Chancellor of the University, Mayer died of a heart attack at age 72.[1]
Following in the footsteps of his father, Mayer devoted much of his time and attention to hunger issues. Many of the 750 articles and ten books he wrote were concerned with issues such as famine and nutrition policies. Mayer also served as an advisor on food issues to three U.S. Presidents and U.S. Department of State, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations' Childrens Fund. He was chairman of the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health, the work of which paved the way for the subsequent establishment of the food stamp program and the expansion of reduced-price school lunch programs for poor children.
Mayer was politically active in other realms, as well. He was the first scientist to speak out against the use of herbicides in the Vietnam War, and he helped sponsor scholarship programs that sent non-white South Africans to mixed-race universities in their home country.
He was awarded the Bolton S. Corson Medal in 1978 for outstanding contribution to human nutrition.
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