Dr. David H. Baker is a comparative nutritionist who has published extensively in the areas of protein-amino acid nutrition, trace-mineral and phosphorus utilization, and vitamin bioavailability. At the University of Illinois, he holds emeritus appointments in Animal Sciences, Nutritional Sciences, and Internal Medicine. He has been a member of the Illinois faculty since 1967, having received his Ph.D. degree there in 1965.

Dr. Baker held the position of senior scientist at Eli Lilly and Co. from 1965 to 1967. His research work involves poultry, pigs, companion animals, laboratory rodents, and humans. He has received six major awards from the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) and five from the Poultry Science Association (PSA), including those societies’ highest honors (the Morrison Award from ASAS and the Merck Award from PSA). He also received two national–international awards from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences: the Borden Award in 1986 and the Dannon Award in 2003.

In 1986 Dr. Baker was named a University Scholar at Illinois; in 1987 he received the USDA Distinguished Service Award in Research. He has twice received his Department’s H. H. Mitchell Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching. Over the course of his career, Dr. Baker has published 490 peer-reviewed papers, 285 abstracts, and 200 popular-press articles, and has directed 36 students through Ph.D. degrees and 18 through M.S. degrees. He has consulted for several companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries, and has been an invited speaker at major conferences and universities throughout the world. He has been on editorial boards of six different journals, and he has served on five subcommittees of the National Research Council and the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). In 2005, Dr. Baker was elected to membership in the NAS. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.