The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy received an anonymous donation of $10 million on Jan. 30 for student financial aid. This is the largest donation after the $20 million gift in 2001 from the Friedman Family Foundation that led to the school’s name change in honor of Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman.
The first $1 million was donated as a gift and the remaining $9 million was pledged as a matching challenge, which Christina Economos, dean at the Friedman School, will work to fulfill in the next year.
Economos acknowledged the donation’s impact for students, as well as how it validates and motivates the work being done at the school.
“It’s known across the globe that Friedman School graduates have impact, make a difference and they’re excellent graduates to hire,” Economos said. “In a very crowded environment right now, it validated that we are one of the best places to train in nutrition and that we want to provide opportunity for those who might not be able to attain a degree from Tufts University.”
The scholarships supported by this donation will be merit-based, as opposed to need-based. They will contribute to the success of the three main goals of Friedman’s “growth and sustainability strategy.” The first goal, “educational transformation,” aims to create new ways to attend the Friedman School. Not only can students obtain a degree in-person at the Boston campus, Friedman also offers an online degree, accelerated masters program and continuing education for practitioners in the field.
“Our goal is to open our doors and provide our excellent education to people of all backgrounds and give opportunity where it didn’t exist before,” Economos said.
Economos highlighted the accelerated masters program, which launched this past summer, as an opportunity for Tufts students in the School of Arts and Sciences to begin to take classes towards their M.S. in nutrition while still undergraduates.
The Friedman School’s second goal is in research growth and expansion. Professors and students conduct research in a number of different areas including AI, climate and equity, with the hope of influencing practice and policy.
The final goal surrounds branding and communication. Economos hopes to expand the Health & Nutrition Letter, the school’s monthly publication, to communicate innovations in nutrition for a larger audience. She also hopes that this donation will contribute to a more diverse class of students at the Friedman School.
“Many of the problems in nutrition occur in communities with disadvantage, and we need to make sure that our trainees reflect the population,” Economos said.
Samantha Jezak, a Ph.D. candidate in the Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition program, specializes in cellular senescence. In her basic biology aging lab at Tufts, Jezak looks at cells that accelerate the aging process through the secretion of inflammatory molecules and increase the chances of chronic disease development.
Not many universities have the materials to conduct extensive research in this developing field, but the school’s funding allowed Jezak to travel abroad to do so. Through the Sadowsky Scholarship, offered by the Friedman School, she was able to conduct research in a lab at The University of Sydney.
“If I hadn’t received that money or that wasn’t an opportunity for me, this research would not be happening,” Jezak said. “It simply would not be happening because [The University of Sydney doesn’t] have somebody who specializes in cellular senescence and we don’t have a study that big.”
Yamilet Perez Aragon, a masters student studying agriculture, food and environment, said that she had not considered graduate school as an option before being offered a scholarship to the Friedman School. According to Perez Aragon, the scholarship has allowed her to advance her knowledge in a way that will be beneficial to her career and ability to make a difference in the world of nutrition.
“[Without the scholarship] I wouldn’t have grown to the extent that I have,” Perez Aragon said. “I wouldn’t be able to spend so much of my days just thinking about all the problems in our food systems and preparing myself to be able to fix them once I’m out in the field.”
“I just think with this donation, there’s gonna be a lot more students who know that they care about something but who lack the resources, they’ll be able to be here and feel confident that this is where they belong, that they deserve this and that they have the power to be a source of change,” Perez Aragon said.
