Jane Brody

Jane Brody earned a B.S. degree in biochemistry from the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in and then went on to receive a masters degree in science writing from the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism. After two years as a general assignment reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, in 1965 she joined The New York Times as a full-time specialist in medicine and biology. By 1976 she had become The Times’s Personal Health columnist. Her widely read and quoted column, which appears every Tuesday in The Times’s Science Times section and in scores of other newspapers around the country, earned her the title of  “High Priestess of Health” from Time Magazine.

Ms. Brody has also written a wealth of magazine articles and lectures frequently on health issues to audiences both lay and professional. She has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows throughout the country and has received numerous prestigious awards for journalistic excellence. She has earned an honorary doctorate from Princeton University. She also has honorary doctorates from Hamline University in St. Paul, the State University of New York Health Sciences University and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Ms. Brody has written ten books including the best-sellers Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book and Jane Brody’s Good Food Book. She is co-author of The New York Times Guide to Alternative Health. Her newest work, Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life, was published in February 2009.

To keep her body from “rusting out,” she insists on daily physical activity, alternating between walking, cycling, swimming, ice skating, hiking, gardening and cross-country skiing. This has resulted in a woman who is more robust, energetic, youthful, and trim at 70 than she was at 17.

Ms. Brody was born on May 19, 1941, in Brooklyn, New York, where she has  resided since 1967 with her recently deceased husband Richard Engquist. Their twin sons, Erik and Lorin, both married, share her enthusiasm for wholesome food and fitness. She is the proud grandmother of four boys, including a pair of Brooklyn-born twins who at age 10 are continuing to resist her efforts to sell them on fruits and vegetables.