Dr. Caballero is Professor Emeritus at the Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, with joint appointment at the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University.

He obtained his M.D. from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and his Ph.D. in neuroendocrine regulation from MIT, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He started his academic career as assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Nutrition Unit of Boston Children’s Hospital, and subsequently became the founding director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.

Dr. Caballero has focused his research on child nutrition and health in developing countries. In particular, he has explored the combination of undernutrition and overweight that has become increasingly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. He was a member of the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, USA, and of a number of expert panels created by the Institute, including the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) Committee, the Expert Panel on Macronutrient Requirements, and the Childhood Obesity Task Force. He was also a member of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee, of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and of a number of advisory committees of the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture.

He is a member of the Spanish Academy of Nutritional Sciences and Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition. Recent awards include the Donald Medearis Lectureship from the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, the George G. Graham Lectureship from Johns Hopkins University, the Latin American Prize in Nutrition from the Latin American Society of Nutrition, the Mataix Prize for lifetime achievements in nutrition science from the Spanish Academy of Nutritional Sciences, the Ancel Keys Prize for achievements in international public health, and the Thompson-Beaudette Lectureship from Rutgers University.

He is the author of over 200 publications. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition, a 10-volume work on food production, consumption and biological effects. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Human Nutrition, which received the Book of the Year Award from the British Medical Association. His Guide to Dietary Supplements summarizes the current scientific basis for the use of mineral and vitamin supplements. His book The Nutrition Transition: Diet and Disease in the Developing World explored the impact of demographic and economic development on diet- and lifestyle-related diseases in developing countries. His book Obesity in China summarizes research conducted in rural and urban China to track the impact of socioeconomic development on health outcomes. He is also co-editor of a widely used textbook on human nutrition, Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease.