Outreach

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Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College

In collaboration with the Scott Arboretum, and directed toward undergraduates at Swarthmore College, I create educational outreach programs about plants, food, and culture. These have included ethnobotanical tours of international grocery stores, culinary botany classes, and a dinner event about the geographic origins of culturally-significant foods.
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Taste of Life Project

We develop and deliver food-based science outreach events to teach about biodiversity. Our events are always celebratory and interactive, and so far we have engaged participants in such topics as pollinator diversity, evolutionary relationships, biogeography, culinary traditions, and using mindfulness to appreciate sensory diversity in food. With our collaboration now spanning multiple states, we hope to develop and share curricula that are adaptable and accessible to a wide range of communities. Read more on our website and in our published article.

Slow Food

Slow Food is an international organization that promotes food that is good, clean, and fair. One of our projects, the Ark of Taste, is a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods in danger of extinction. Through my involvement with my local Slow Food chapter, and as a delegate to Terra Madre, I have actively educated communities about heritage foods and have worked to preserve them. This has included, for example, maintaining an Ark of Taste educational garden, collaborating with undergraduates at the University of Michigan to update Ark of Taste entries, working with an international network of enthusiasts to save the endangered Jesuit Pear, and spreading the word about agrobiodiversity to whoever will listen.