Writing
My writing gives historical and cultural context for innovation, illuminates the human side of systemic challenges, and explores possible futures.
The following is a selection of articles and reports I’ve written or co-authored.
The Power of Plants: Perennial Grains, Wild Plants, and Sea Vegetables
This is part two of series I wrote to sharpen the conversation about what plant-rich farming and eating look like.
The Power of Plants: Landraces and Legumes
This is part of series I wrote to sharpen the conversation about what plant-rich farming and eating look like.
Not All Benefit: A 2040 Scenario
This is a scenario for the food system in 2040 I wrote as the final assignment with Climate Farm School. It explores a possible future and how we got from here to there.
What a Sustainable Food Future Looks Like
Vivian Barad and I share how companies can reduce food loss and waste, design products with biodiversity in mind, and transform their supply chains in this piece for The Journal, IDEO’s series covering business insight and innovation.
Designing a Resilient Food System Post-COVID
Holly Bybee and I write how designing for adaptability, trust, dignity, and agency can build a more resilient food system in Milken Institute’s Power of Ideas series. This article is based on our discussion with The Spoon’s Michael Wolf.
Three Strategies for Designing Kitchens of the Future
In this article for the food design magazine Mold, I question the use of technology for technology’s sake in the kitchen and recommend looking at how technology might be kept in the background to allow for deeper engagement with our food and each other. This piece is based on my Smart Kitchen Summit keynote, which was also featured in The New York Times.
Foreword for Food Futures Book by Chloé Rutzerveld
I was delighted when fellow food futurist Chloé Rutzerveld invited me to write the foreword to her book exploring the intersection of design and technology. In this post, I give a preview of Chloé’s book and more details about her work.
Future Food Experiences
Institute for the Future’s 2016 forecast map explores how we might combine futures thinking with design tools to reinvent food experiences and transform the food system. I was the project lead, which included writing forecasts, editing forecasts from four other authors, and working with the design team to visualize the framework. My colleague Sarah Sha led the development of a toolkit.
Recipes for Food Innovation
As the project lead for Institute for the Future’s 2015 ten-year forecasts, Food Innovation: Recipes for the Next Decade, I drove narrative strategy for the work, edited chapters from four other authors to unite them in one voice, and developed a framework (recipe “catalysts”) to help industry leaders apply the forecasts.
Innovating Where Biology and Technology Meet
The forecasts I developed for Institute for the Future’s food innovation recipe book explore how the convergence of two drivers of change—the biodesign movement and synthetic biology—could redefine what we eat, how we eat it, and how we grow it.
Investigating Chat Apps and Media for Google News Lab
I was the lead researcher and author of this ethnographic case study of the chat app news media ecosystem in South Korea for the Google News Lab. The goal was to better understand the role chat apps will play in the creation and propagation of news around the world, highlighting key challenges and opportunities—a useful analogous study for anyone interested in misinformation and trust in food information.
4 Projects Creating an Open, Shared Food Web
I highlight four signals of a future in which recipes, knowledge, and seeds are shared freely and openly, bolstered by digital technologies, for Food + Tech Connect’s future of dining series.