Junaida Astina, S.Gz., Ph.D

Junaida earned her bachelor’s degree in Nutrition Science from Institut Pertanian Bogor in 2014. She was awarded the Karya Salemba Empat (KSE) scholarship during her bachelor’s study. She was involved in many student activities and community services during her bachelor’s study, including creating an educational board game related to health and nutrition for school-aged children. This program brought Junaida and her team to win the gold medal in National Science Week (PIMNAS XXIV) in Makassar. Junaida was also granted an Outstanding Student during her bachelor’s program.

Junaida started her career as Brand Communication Executive in a multinational company. Her main role was to give nutritional education to society about the benefits of soybean and its association with non-communicable diseases, including obesity and diabetes. She also helped raise people’s awareness of diabetes by creating some seminars in many hospitals.

In 2014, she received a scholarship program from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand for her doctoral study.  Her Ph.D. research was on the development of nutritional supplements using tapioca maltodextrin and resistant maltodextrin that were intended for people requiring nutritional support to improve their nutritional status. She received research grants from Thailand Research Fund and Banpong Novitat, co., Ltd. during her Ph.D. study. Junaida published several articles in Scopus-indexed journals. She finished her doctoral study in 2021 and was awarded an Outstanding Graduate Student in the same year.

Junaida and her friends also created an online-based education program for mothers which focuses on complementary feeding. Her dream is to create a stunting-free generation. She believes that every child has the right to have proper nutrition. Therefore, she hopes to solve the nutrition problems in Indonesia by giving nutrition education to mothers since mothers’ knowledge plays important role in children’s nutritional status.