in 1945, shortly after the end of the war, he was elected to the chair of physiology at queen elizabeth college in london (then the king's college of household and social science). over the next several years, under his leadership, the college and the university of london established a bsc degree in nutrition (the first degree in nutrition in any european university). students were taught an integrated series of courses including not only chemistry, physics and biology but also relevant elements of demography, sociology, economics and psychology. the first students were admitted in 1953, and in 1954 the department of nutrition was officially opened and yudkin's chair was converted into a professorship of nutrition. during the following years the department won an international reputation not only for the strength of its research in the physiological and biochemical aspects of the subject, but also for work in such topics as nutrition in the elderly, food surveys in defined populations and the psychology of food choice, and it attracted numerous students from outside the uk, many of them from developing countries.