Nutritionist. Bernice Lydia Kunerth was born on June 10, 1910 in Ames, Iowa, where her father, William Kunerth, served as a physics professor at Iowa State College. In 1932 she graduated with a combined major in foods, nutrition, and chemistry from Iowa State College and received her Master of Science (1933) from Kansas State University.
Kunerth worked as a food/nutrition research technician and instructor at Kansas State until 1938 when she went to New York and acquired a Ph. D (1940) in Nutrition Chemistry from Columbia University. In 1942 she began working for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. and married Raymond Dewey Watt in 1942.
Watt's career with the USDA entailed nutritional research. She retired in 1974 as Leader of the Nutrient Data Center. Under her leadership, the information available grew from two tables containing data on 13 nutrients in 275 foods to 20 tables consisting of values for 50 nutrients and 3,000 foods.
From the description of Papers, 1910-1984. (Iowa State University). WorldCat record id: 32685233
