Professor Jonathan C.K. Wells stands as a distinguished authority in the field of nutritional anthropology with over two decades of dedicated research and academic leadership. He currently serves as Professor of Anthropology and Paediatric Nutrition at the University College London's Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health within the Faculty of Population Health Sciences. His academic journey commenced with a degree in social anthropology, followed by an MPhil in biological anthropology, and culminated in a PhD in biological anthropology and nutrition, all completed at prestigious academic institutions. Professor Wells has established himself as a leading voice at the intersection of anthropology and pediatric nutrition, building a distinguished career that bridges evolutionary theory with practical applications in child health.
Professor Wells has pioneered innovative methodologies for measuring pediatric body composition, energy metabolism, and breast-milk intake, significantly advancing the scientific community's understanding of early life nutritional requirements. His development of the capacity-load model provides a conceptual framework for integrating data on different components of body composition to predict non-communicable disease risk across the life course. This groundbreaking work has transformed how researchers understand the double burden of malnutrition, particularly the coexistence of undernutrition in early life with later obesity and metabolic disorders. His research has demonstrated how poor growth in early life constrains the development of lean mass components while catch-up growth or later weight gain increases adiposity, thereby elevating non-communicable disease risk through disrupted metabolic homeostasis.
Beyond his methodological innovations, Professor Wells has significantly shaped the field through his evolutionary perspective on pediatric nutrition, connecting developmental plasticity with long-term health outcomes across generations. His work has influenced international public health approaches to child nutrition, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where the double burden of malnutrition presents complex challenges. As an active contributor to the Human Evolution research group at UCL, he continues to advance interdisciplinary understanding of how evolutionary processes inform contemporary nutritional challenges. Professor Wells remains committed to developing more precise body composition assessment tools and refining theoretical frameworks that can better predict and prevent non-communicable diseases through early life nutritional interventions.
