Noel W. Solomons

Noel W. Solomons was Assistant and Associate Professor from 1977 to 1984 in the former Department of Nutrition and Food Science of MIT. He is the son of Gus Solomons, Sr. ’28 and brother of Gus Solomons, Jr. ’61.

“Born and raised in Cambridge, he played Basketball for Cambridge High and Latin. A physician by graduate training, he performed his university studies at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School; it was during overseas electives in his medical training that he visited Peru and Colombia and committed to an expatriate life trajectory outside of his homeland.

Clinical training included a residency in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and specialization in gastroenterology and clinical nutrition at the University of Chicago. He became a resident of Guatemala in 1974 as an Affiliated Investigator at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama.

He would later commute for eight years to a faculty position in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Courtesy Hildegard Grunow Foundation

“Dr. Solomons served as an Associate Professor of Clinical Nutrition at MIT from 1977 to 1984. He co-founded the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM) in 1985 and is Senior Scientist and Scientific Director of the International Nutrition Foundation’s Central American biomedical research unit in Guatemala City. “He’s a genius down there,” said [Gus Solomons Jr, Noel’s older brother.”]” Courtesy MIT.edu

“Assuming a full-time Guatemala commitment in 1985, he co-founded the Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM) where he remains its scientific Director. Over 40 local university theses have been completed by Central American students in that institution as well as an equal number of master’s degree research projects from international students from Europe, and North and South America. He has supervised doctoral dissertations for 12 PhD candidates from the USA, Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands through CeSSIAM.

Among the honors bestowed upon Dr. Solomons are the International Nutrition Prize of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, the Kellogg Prize of the Society for International Nutrition Research. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Nutrition. He is an Academic member of the Guatemalan Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences and the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Food Science. He was the awardee of the 2010 National Medal for Science and Technology for Guatemala.

He has been a visiting professor in university courses in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Indonesia and Spain. He currently holds adjunct professorial appointments at the Boston University School of Public Health, and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policyand the Department of Community Medicine and Public Health, both at Tufts University. He is a founding Board of Directors member of the Hildegard Grunow Foundation in Munich and the Essential Nutrient Foundation of Singapore. Finally, Dr. Solomons is the Coordinator for Central America of the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation in Boston, and Associate Editor for the Foundation’s Food and Nutrition Bulletin. He serves on Editorial Boards for 10 scientific journals.” Courtesy Hildegard Grunow Foundation

Publications Sample

Dr. Solomons has 332 publications indexed on Medline. In addition, he has edited two books and contributed over 100 articles, reviews, editorials, and commentaries in non-indexed venues and over 50 book chapters. These are dedicated to the scientific and academic interests of his career including: clinical nutrition; human growth and body composition; lactose maldigestion; dietary intake, nutritional status, intestinal absorption, and food fortification related to various micronutrients (vitamins, trace elements and essential fatty acids); complementary feeding; nutrition in aging and chronic disease; and the interaction of malnutrition and infection.