Fernando Mönckeberg Barros

Fernando Rafael Mönckeberg Barros (born 26 June 1926) is a Chilean surgeon, doctor of medicine specializing in nutrition, professor, researcher, and economist at the University of Chile. He is the founder of the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Chile [es] (INTA) and president of the Corporation for Child Nutrition [es] (CONIN).
The son of Gustavo Mönckeberg Bravo and Beatriz Barros Calvo, Fernando Rafael Mönckeberg is the brother of gynecologist and politician Gustavo Mönckeberg Barros [es].
Barros finished his secondary education, overcoming great difficulties due to undiagnosed dyslexia; his grades did not give him many options when applying to universities. He performed military service, where he was assigned to the telecommunications sector. There Barros discovered that telegraphy did not present him with the same problems as writing, so he decided that he would continue in that line of work once his service was finished. However, a woman with whom he had a close relationship for a few years managed to use her influence to allow him to enter the University of Chile, where he graduated with a degree in medicine in 1952. In 1958, Barros did postgraduate studies in biochemistry and teaching at Harvard University.
Mönckeberg Barros developed extensive scientific research in the field of child malnutrition in Chile, publishing articles in specialized journals inside and outside the country. He formed CONPAN, an autonomous entity whose objective was the elaboration and coordination of a food and nutrition policy, and he managed to make the country adopt enriched milk. He is the founder and president of the Corporation for Child Nutrition (CONIN).
In 1959, Barros became an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard University Children's Hospital. In 1965, he became a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chile, as well as president of the Chilean Society of Pediatrics and president of the Latin American Nutrition Society. Two years later Barros founded the Latin American Pediatric Research Society and served as its first president. In 1972, he created INTA, and was its director until 1994. In 1975, he founded CONIN.
From 1994 to 1996, Barros was rector of the Universidad Santo Tomás [es]. From 1998 to 1999, he was rector of the Iberoamerican University of Science and Technology. In 2001, he became dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Diego Portales University.
Mönckeberg Barros has been an academic at the "House of Bello" (University of Chile) for more than 30 years. He has been elected an honorary member of national and international institutions, mainly in the pediatric and nutritional fields, including the Chilean Academy of Medicine [es], the United States Academy of Pediatrics, the Third World Scientific Academy, and academies of England, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina.
Barros was an advisor to specialized committees of the United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization.
In 1989, Barros tried unsuccessfully to present his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic in the 1989 election. His application was rejected by the Electoral Service of Chile [es] on 24 August of that year, as his lists of sponsoring voters exceeded the allowed percentage of sponsors registered in political parties.
In addition to the publication of about 130 articles in specialized journals, Mönckeberg Barros has written some 65 chapters in specialized books, and also 12 of his own works. He is the director of the journal Creces, a publication through which the "Educational program for scientific dissemination" has been developed since 1980, aimed at middle and high school levels and medical professionals, and part of the set of programs implemented by CONIN.