Catharine Ross is the occupant of the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and Professor of Nutrition at The Pennsylvania State University. She earned her B.S. degree from the University of California at Davis and a Masters of Nutrition Sciences and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular and cell biology from Cornell University. After postdoctoral work at Columbia University, she joined the faculty of the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she advanced before moving to Penn State in 1994. She has served as councilor and treasurer of the AmericanSociety for Nutrition (ASN) and is currently Editor in Chief of The Journal of Nutrition. She received the Mead Johnson Award and the Osborne and Mendel Award from the ASN, is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. She has served on various National Institutes of Health and Institute of Medicine committees, including the Food and Nutrition Board. Her research is focused on the regulation of vitamin A transport and function, especially in the immune system. Currently, she teaches graduate courses in molecular nutrition and an undergraduate writing intensive nutrition seminar. She served as an editor for the ninth and tenth editions of Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease.