Louise 0. Fresco, Honorary Doctorate from the University of Montpellier

Professor Louise O. Fresco, President, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) Louise O. Fresco combines a distinguished career as a professor in Wageningen and Amsterdam with a longstanding commitment to public policy and development, through programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as numerous teaching activities in Sweden, Belgium, and the United States.

Louise O. Fresco is a member of eight scientific academies and holds three honorary doctorates. She served for ten years as Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. She has served on the boards of companies such as Rabobank and Unilever and is a member of the board of Syngenta and numerous private foundations.

Her book Hamburgers in Paradise, the stories behind the food we eat (Laffont) was a huge success and has been translated into several languages. She has published a total of 13 books, mainly fiction, and contributes to a column in the Netherlands' leading newspaper, NRC. She also presented a six-part documentary series on food and development on Dutch television (available on her website). She gave a TED talk in Palm Springs in 2009.

President of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) since July 2014, Louise O. Fresco is actively involved in developing her institution's relations with the University of Montpellier and, more broadly, with I-SITE MUSE, of which she is a member of the international strategic advisory board: the MUSE International Advisory Board (MIAB). WUR is one of the first universities with which Montpellier University signed a framework cooperation agreement on the initiative of the MUSE project. Louise O. Fresco also demonstrated her interest in our university during the launch of MAK'IT Montpellier Advanced Knowledge Institute on Transitions, when she planted one of WUR's hundred UniversiTREEs in the heart of the University of Montpellier's Jardin des Plantes.

The title of Doctor Honoris Causa is one of the most prestigious distinctions awarded by French universities to honor "foreign nationals for outstanding services to science, literature, or the arts, to France, or to the university."