Habeat-symposium - Key note speakers

Benoist Schaal:
He was trained in neuroscience and behavioral biology at the Universities of Strasbourg and Besançon. He was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Montréal (Canada). Since 1988, he is affiliated with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), conducting studies on how fetal and infantile sensory experience shape the development of perception, learning and preferences in humans, but also in rabbits, sheep, pigs, cats, and mice. Between 2002 and 2009, he headed the Centre for Smell and Taste Science in Dijon, France. He currently leads there a group focusing on adaptive cognition in infant mammals, specifically on how olfaction contributes to fine-tune their affects, knowledge, and behaviour. He published over 200 papers and chapters, and edited "Smell Function in Children: Mixing Perspectives" (in French, 1997, PUF, Paris), and co-edited "Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition" (2003, Cambridge University Press, New York), "Infants and Children Facing Food" (in French, 2008, PUF, Paris), and Olfactory Cognition (2012, Benjamin, Amsterdam).

Kim Fleischer Michaelsen MD. Dr Med Sci:
Professor in paediatric nutrition at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen and Senior consultant at the Paediatric Nutrition Unit, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen. Advisor to the National Board of Health on infant and paediatric nutrition. Has been temporary advisor and performed consultancies for WHO on infant and young child feeding, feeding of moderately undernourished children and long term effects of complementary feeding.  Head of the research group “Paediatric and International Nutrition” with 25 employees. The group’s research projects focus on the effect of infant and young child nutrition on growth, development and later health in industrialised and low-income countries. Topics include breastfeeding, complementary feeding, growth and body composition, early determinants of obesity, prevention and treatment of undernutrition among infants, young children and HIV patients in low income countries. Studies are performed in Denmark, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Cambodia and Burkina Faso.