Jan Low (born 1955 [1] ) is an American food scientist. She is known for her work helping develop the biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato at the CGIAR International Potato Center, for which she was a co-recipient of the 2016 World Food Prize [2] alongside Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga, and Howarth Bouis. [3]
Low was born in 1955 in Denver, Colorado. [1] She attended Pomona College and spent four years in Zaire with the Peace Corps before earning a doctorate in agricultural economics at Cornell University in 1994. [2] [1]
After Cornell, Low began working at the Nairobi office of the CGIAR International Potato Center, a research center based in Lima, Peru. [1] She helped develop the biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato, which contains more vitamin A than the dominant variant, and can therefore be used to help alleviate the vitamin A deficiency common among children in the region. [2]