Only 90 people nationwide are elected as new members to the National Academy of Medicine each year. Among the electees this year is Steven Abrams, a pediatrics professor at Dell Medical School, according to an Oct. 19 news release from the National Academy of Medicine.
Established in 1970, the National Academy of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization in the United States that publishes policy advocacy, research and education resources, according to the organization’s announcement. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine, according to the announcement.
“It’s a substantial honor,” Abrams said. “At UT-Austin, the last person elected while faculty at Dell Medical School was the previous dean in 2019, and this year, only (four) people from the state of Texas were elected to the National Academy of Medicine.”
Abrams has spent much of his career advocating for healthy nutrition and other health care needs for children, according to Dell Medical School.
According to the National Academy of Medicine, Abrams was elected for his expertise in infant and micronutrient nutrition.
“His research has been central in developing global guidelines, including the Dietary Reference Intakes,” the National Academy of Medicine wrote in the announcement. “He has developed and implemented protocols for nutrition for preterm infants, including evaluating human milk base fortification and fat sources for high-risk infants.”
After working as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Abrams spent about 23 years on faculty at Baylor College of Medicine. He joined UT in 2015 as the inaugural chair of Dell Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics.
“Over a period of time, I became more involved in public policy,” Abrams said. “(I became) more involved in things like the rights of children throughout the world to have healthy food, and things like supporting how babies in the neonatal ICU get fed.”
Abrams is chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Nutrition and served on the federal Dietary Advisory Committee. In these roles, he helped evaluate scientific research and develop nutrition recommendations that can inform public policy.
Beyond his research and policy work, Abrams teaches an infant nutrition seminar for Plan II Honors students at UT, where he introduces undergraduates to the relationship between nutrition, medicine and public policy. Fiona Wilson, a Plan II and psychology senior, took the class last semester and said it reaffirmed her plan to become a physician.
“I think the most valuable thing about his class … is it’s not about being right or wrong,” Wilson said. “It’s about having an opinion and also being informed on these controversial subjects.”
Wilson said the class encouraged students to think critically about nutrition issues and how scientific information is communicated to the public. Abrams has become a mentor to Wilson, advising her senior thesis and helping her prepare for medical school.
“He’s open to talking to anyone, especially about being pre-med,” Wilson said. “It’s actually super cool because I’ve never had a professor that was so unambiguously on my side.”
