It is with great sadness that we record the untimely death in June of Sheila Bingham, a highly valued member of the world nutrition community and of our Editorial Board. As a colleague said on hearing of her death: ‘What a lovely lady. What a good scientist. Damn’. Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Sheila over many years will miss her as a friend and colleague. She was so dedicated to her work, had such passion for nutrition, and worked so hard to make sure things were done properly.

Sheila was a rare and special person. When the UK nutritional epidemiology group was formed in 1986, she was prepared to share her ideas and concerns on the apparent ignorance about how to assess the validity of dietary surveys. This openness helped all of us in our struggles to do things better and improve the quality of the evidence base in the interests of public health. Sheila also contributed hugely to our understanding of the relationship between food, nutrition and cancer. In a future issue we plan a paper that will summarise her important contribution to nutrition learning, teaching and practice.