Media Contact:
Jordan Baker
jbaker@frac.org
202-640-1118

WASHINGTON, February 16, 2021 — The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) today announced five new board members who will help guide the advocacy organization’s work to eradicate poverty-related hunger and undernutrition in the United States.

“We are thrilled to expand our board with distinguished leaders who will bring diverse perspectives to FRAC,” said Luis Guardia, president of FRAC. “Their respective expertise will be critical as we advance the agenda to protect and strengthen federal nutrition programs to mitigate the alarming rates of hunger in this country and to eradicate systemic racism and other root causes of hunger.”

The five new board members are:

  • Kellie Adesina serves as the Director of Government Affairs at Bayer. In her role, she is responsible for engaging members of Congress and administration officials on crop science issues. Before joining Bayer, she was Chief Counsel on the House Agriculture Committee for Chairman Collin C. Peterson where she successfully drafted several provisions included in the 2018 farm bill.
  • Sherry Brennan is a senior executive in the Pay TV industry, and currently serves as the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Whip Media’s soon-to-launch content marketplace, which is expected to transform the way the content industry licenses movies and TV shows globally.
  • Kofi D. Essel, MD, MPH, FAAP is a board-certified Community Pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Director of The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences’ Community/Urban Health Scholarly Concentration, and Clinical Public Health Lecturer.
  • Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach serves as the Director of the Institute for Policy Research and the Margaret Walker Alexander Professor in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.
  • Jeff Davidoff is a serial marketing change agent. He is the founder of The Idea Monkeys, a transformational marketing agency focused on social impact and based in Los Angeles, CA. Davidoff has more than 25 years of experience on both the client-side and agency-sides of the business.

Already, members have worked alongside FRAC experts to tackle food insecurity. Dr. Essel co-authored the updated Screen & Intervene: A Toolkit for Pediatricians to Address Food Insecurity, designed to help pediatricians identify and address childhood food insecurity. Schanzenbach was FRAC’s contributing economist for the

Not Enough to Eat: COVID-19 Deepens America’s Hunger Crisis report that underscores how the struggle to put food on the table would be far worse during COVID-19 if not for federal nutrition programs. Brennan has also addressed the National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference, the country’s largest annual gathering of anti-hunger advocates co-hosted by FRAC and Feeding America.

To view the full FRAC Board of Directors members, click here.

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For 50 years, the Food Research & Action Center has been the leading national nonprofit organization working to eradicate poverty-related hunger and undernutrition in the United States. To learn more, visit FRAC.org and follow us on Twitter and on Facebook.