Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

In 2009, Navyn Salem set out to help end the crisis of global malnutrition by founding Edesia, a U.S. nonprofit, social enterprise, with a mission to treat and prevent malnutrition in developing countries worldwide. She is founder and CEO of the company, whose Rhode Island factory produces a range of fortified, peanut-based products like Plumpy’Nut for such humanitarian agencies as UNICEF, World Food Programme, USAID, and other non-governmental organizations working in emergency and conflict zones. Since 2010, Edesia has reached more than 13 million children in over 58 countries, including Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen, and Syria.

In 2019, Salem launched a new line of nut butters called MeWe, developed to address hunger and the nutritional challenges through the ages and stages of life here in the United States from babies to the elderly. MeWe is also used as a snack in school lunch programs and for food banks here in the United States as part of the COVID-19 emergency response.

Salem was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year/New England in 2018, New Englander of the Year by the New England Council in 2017 and New England Business Woman of the Year by Bryant University. She was awarded honorary degrees by her alma mater, Boston College (2012), as well as Bryant University (2014), Providence College (2017), and Curry College (2018). She is a trustee of Boston College. She is a 2014 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Salem’s father is from Tanzania, and she has four daughters, all of whom were the inspiration for the creation of Edesia.