Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah (Director)

Professional experience

Ina Danquah is a nutrition scientist specialized in epidemiology. Since 2019, Danquah investigates the interactions between climate change, nutrition and health. She employs the concept of Sustainable Nutrition, including the features of healthfulness, climate- and environmental friendliness, cultural acceptability, and affordability. Danquah designs, implements and evaluates adaptation strategies against climate change impacts in the Global South, as well as climate change mitigation approaches in the nutrition sector that confer health co-benefits. As a nutrition epidemiologist, Danquah characterizes the dietary behavior of populations living in sub-Saharan Africa and migrant groups in Europe. She examines relationships with obesity and cardio-metabolic health and is interested in the interactions with undernutrition and infectious diseases.

As Hertz Chair at the University of Bonn, she will establish a prospective, multi-center cohort study in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the interactions between climate change, nutrition and health; she will also build a global network of intervention studies for the development, implementation, and evaluation of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Before working at ZEF, Danquah was Robert Bosch Junior Professor for Research into the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources 2019 at Heidelberg Institute for Global Health, Heidelberg University (2019 – 2023). As a postdoc, Danquah led the working group “Type 2 diabetes in African populations under transition” at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE).

Danquah has studied nutrition science at Potsdam University and the University of Ghana; she obtained her PhD at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and graduated as MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Danquah received her venia legendi (Habilitation) from the Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Currently, Danquah leads the DFG-funded Research Unit “Climate Change and Health in sub-Saharan Africa” (2020 – 2025), and is coordinating (together with Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm) the Horizon Europe-funded project “Changemaker” on the co-design, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable health interventions for adolescents in three exemplary urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa (2024 – 2027).

Danquah has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in scientific outlets and 8 book chapters. She has an h-index of 21, and more than 1600 citations.