Now, at 30, he is realizing that dream: A doctoral student in nutritional biology at the University of California, Davis, he has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student grant to Vietnam.
On Aug. 22, Hall, son of David and Nancy Hall of Half Moon Bay and a Coastsider since 1999, leaves to begin his 10-month fellowship at the National Institute of Nutrition in Hanoi, Vietnam.
 Courtesy Andrew Hall Andrew Hall visits a woman and her children at their home in one of the economically disadvantaged areas of the Cam Khe district, where he will develop and test his recipes for supplemental animal-source foods. |
Hall is part of the Program in International and Community Nutrition, established in 1987 at UC Davis. A renowned research unit which prepares doctoral students for international and community nutrition research, the program concerns nutrition in low-income and developing countries, as well has helping disadvantaged groups at home.
In this case, the location is the Cam Khe district of the Phu Tho province in Vietnam, and the starting point is undernutrition of expectant mothers which, even when corrected, can have negative consequences for both maternal and infant health. A source of nutrients needed to correct this imbalance lies in animal-source foods like eggs, fish or organ meats.
Meat is part of the Vietnamese diet, said Hall, but he pointed out that many rural Vietnamese prefer to sell their stock.
The thrust of his work is to pinpoint local sources of this vital nutrition, develop supplements to animal-source foods, create recipes integrating them and develop an intervention around consuming these foods daily, while monitoring effects on blood chemistry, birth weight and infant growth.
It will begin with non-pregnant women of reproductive age, and women who are likely to become pregnant. It will integrate a cultural component, as Hall will spend time with local women developing recipes using local foods.
It isn’t the first time Hall has hit the books or worked with the people of Hanoi. As a volunteer, he has done research on graduate and postgraduate levels at UC Davis, and taught English at the Hanoi School of Public Health in 2005 and 2006. But this is a start for the work he hopes to do.
“This is my first time living in developing countries, able to see firsthand the nutrition and health challenges” there, he said.
The project was initiated in fall 2006 by Hall and Dr. Tu Ngu, who is in the applied nutrition department of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hanoi. He is also a member of the international team of doctors and scientists with whom Hall is working, along with his major professor, Janet King. A professor of nutrition at the universities of California at Berkeley and Davis, she is known for research in dietary guidelines for pregnant women and the first nutritionist inducted into the U.S. Department of Agriculture Science Hall of Fame.
Hall’s work in this area is no surprise to his family. “I certainly knew he was always scientific,” said mother Nancy Hall, noting that her son’s interest in medicine started around seventh grade and his interest in nutrition as a college undergraduate. “He loved to tinker and figure out how things work and to fix them ... We’re so proud of him. It’s an incredible honor.”
A resident of Saratoga where he completed high school before his family relocated to Half Moon Bay, Hall earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and his master’s degree in nutrition, in 2001 and 2004 respectively, from UC Davis. He considered medical school, but his interest in community nutrition, and several other factors, all pointed in a different direction.
He knew medical school would keep him busy for years, that some of the best teachers in the field of community nutrition were at Davis, and that he wanted to build a new program in that area. The best way to do it, he figured, was as a doctoral student using the program as a basis for his dissertation.
“Everything was right there,” he said.
The Fulbright is among America’s flagship international educational programs and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Established in 1946, it has allowed about 286,500 American and foreign students and scholars to observe each other’s political, economic, educational and cultural institutions. It operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
Pre-Fulbright, Hall had studied the effects of heat pasteurization of milk from HIV-infected mothers in Africa and the effects of zinc deficiency and malnutrition in rats, and done research with university outreach and international programs with UC Davis. His awards and honors include scholarships, travel grants, and election to the Phi Sigma Honor Society in Biological Sciences. Then came the Fulbright.
After his fellowship, Hall will finish his dissertation on the effects of animal foods before and during pregnancy. Then come bigger plans.
Hall says he can see himself becoming a nutritional scientist working in developing countries to build sustainable solutions to improvement in maternal and children’s health. He wants to expand on his fellowship work and develop an approach to using local resources to improve maternal nutrition. That could also have an effect on area economy, he said, pointing out that improvements to the economy are linked to improvements in nutrition.
But for now, he is starting at the beginning. “It’s important for me to be able to be out there with people to start developing those recipes,” he said gamely.
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