Management and teaching staff

Teaching staff

Jessica Duncan Jessica Duncan coordinates the Master’s programme in Food, Society and International Food Governance in the Department of Food Systems, Culture and Society. Her research interests include public participation in global agri-food governance and farm-level consequences of agri-food policies. She has worked in community capacity building, rural development, youth engagement and with various food and agriculture organizations. She has published on participation in global agri-food governance and on the politics of food.

Dario Bevilacqua Dr. Dario Bevilacqua holds a Doctorate in Administrative Law from the Faculty of Law at the University of Rome. His doctoral research focussed on food safety regulation in global and European law. He has worked as an external consultant for the FAO and acted as project manager for the Consortium des Universités Euro-Méditerranéennes et des Pays du Sud.

Rachel Black Originally from Vancouver, Canada, I realized early on that I had a passion for food and cooking. While completing a MA in History I went to Lyon, France to do archival research and ended up living in France for three years. I spent a great deal of time in food markets learning about local cuisine and getting to know food producers. I won a fellowship to do my doctoral studies in Italy at the University of Turin. I was thrilled to discover that Turin is home to the largest open-air market in Western Europe, Porta Palazzo. This beautiful market became the focus of my research and now a book, Porta Palazzo: Food, place and identity at the market, which is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press. Some of my current projects include editing A Cultural Encyclopaedia of Alcohol (Greenwood Press) and research on the theory and practice of Slow Wine. I have worked as a lecturer at the University of British Columbia and I am currently a research fellow at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy and an active member of the Slow Food movement.

Ken Hatt Dr. Hatt’s research has revolved around studies of reform, resistance and other responses to Canadian state hegemony in three waves of capitalism. Ken Hatt currently coordinates undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Victoria (Canada) on Environmental Overload, Sustainability, and Ecological Integrity; Trade Liberalization and Food Governance; Small, Local, Organic Farming in a Neoliberal Era, and; Complexity, Complex Systems and Sociology.

Irina Kireeva Irina Kireeva graduated in law and qualified as a lawyer at the Moscow State University (Russian Federation) in 1997 with the highest honours. In 1997-98 she took the degree of Master in Laws (LLM) at Leuven University (Belgium). Since joining O'Connor and Company in March 2002 (NCTM – O’Connor as of May 2009), Irina has been dealing with a variety of international and European trade issues (including WTO law in the areas of agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers, intellectual property and regional integration). She has extensive expertise and knowledge of the EU Food Safety and Quality Policy law as well as Animal Welfare. Recently she participated in the Workshop on Quality of GI products (IPR-2) dedicated to discussions of the Status Quo of GIs systems in China, GIs laws, regulations and practice of GIs protection in China, positions of the EU and China in the negotiations on GIs in the DDA Round, as well as assessing the potential benefits resulting from an EU-China GI Agreement for each economy.

William Meyers William H. Meyers is Co-Director, FAPRI and Professor of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia since 2003. He holds a PhD in agricultural economics, University of Minnesota and MS, University of the Philippines, Los Banos. He was Professor of Economics at Iowa State University, 1979-2003 and Director, Agriculture and Economic Development Division of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations from July 1999 to July 2002, while on leave from ISU. He was Interim Director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development 1996 to 1998 and Co-Director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at Iowa State University from 1984 to 1998. He has directed development projects in Ukraine, Hungary, Indonesia, Zambia, Jamaica, and Honduras and worked on agricultural and rural policy studies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Dr. Meyers has authored numerous publications on trade and agricultural policy, commodity market analysis, and transition economics.

Kay Muir-Leresche Kay Muir-Leresche formerly held the Professorial Chair in Agricultural Economics at the University of Zimbabwe and currently is a freelance consultant based outside Cape Town, South Africa. She has taught and supervised students at all levels and given lectures on most continents on issues relating to food policy. Earlier in her career she was involved with food marketing. She obtained her first degree by distance learning and has a strong empathy for students working from home and in their spare time.

Fabio Parasecoli Fabio Parasecoli lives in Rome and New York City. His research focuses on the intersections between food, culture, and media. He teaches Food Studies courses in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. Among his recent publications: Food Culture in Italy (2004), the introduction to Culinary Cultures in Europe (The Council of Europe, 2005) and Bite me! Food and Pop Culture (2008). He is on the advisory board of the international journal Food Culture Society and on the scientific board of the conference Food Culture at the Council of Europe. He is president of ASFS (Association for the Study of Food and Society).

Karen Rideout Karen Rideout is a PhD candidate in Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, where her dissertation research examines the role of activists and policy makers in shaping diet and food culture in India and Canada. She also works as a Knowledge Translation Scientist at the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (Canada). She has taught nutrition education and food systems research at the undergraduate level. Karen has also been involved in policy and public engagement with non-profit groups focused on food and agriculture issues. She likes to work at the intersections of food systems, the environment, health, and social structures.

Cinzia Scaffidi Cinzia Scaffidi is Director of the Slow Food Study Center and responsible for International Relations at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo and Colorno where she teaches “Interdisciplinarity of Gastronomy”. Her latest publications include Guarda Che Mare (Slow Food Editore, 2007) written with marine biologist Silvio Greco and Sementi e Diritti (Slow Food Editore, 2008) with Stefano Masini.

Zeina Sifri Zeina Sifri is a public health nutritionist who is currently working as an independent consultant in public health and nutrition. Prior to that, she was the Regional Coordinator for Africa with Helen Keller International (HKI). She also held the positions of Deputy Director for Child Survival and Country Director for Burkina Faso with HKI before that. As part of her responsibilities, Zeina developed and implemented programs in partnership with national and international partners, with an emphasis on gardening and food security, micro-nutrient supplementation and fortification, sanitation and hygiene, eye health, and others. She has worked as a consultant with several international organizations focusing on public health nutrition. Prior to that, Zeina worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization in their headquarters in Rome, focusing on nutrition education and then in their Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Thailand, focusing on food quality and safety.

Jayne Stack Originally from the UK, Jayne Stack is an Agricultural Economist who now lives and works in Zimbabwe. She has more than 20 years experience in development training, development programmes and research in Africa and Asia. Formerly senior lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the University of Zimbabwe where she taught research methods, agricultural development and micro economics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Jayne recognises the need for development professionals to be able to incorporate study into their working lifestyles and has in recent years become increasingly involved in distance learning education. She currently provides learning support to SADC students enrolled in postgraduate distance learning studies in sustainable development, development management and agribusiness with the University of London. Jayne has a broad interest in development issues ranging from crop marketing to agricultural policy reform, household food security and livelihood analysis. She also works with a small local church initiative supporting families affected by HIV/AIDS.

Aysen Tanyeri-Abur Dr. Aysen Tanyeri-Abur currently teaches in the Department of Economics at Northeastern University (Boston, USA). She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Food Studies and Gastronomy program at Boston University's Metropolitan College. Until 2007, she was with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN in Rome, where she worked as an Economist in the Economic and Social Analysis Division and as Senior Officer for private sector partnerships. Her research has primarily focused on modelling and analysis of food and agriculture policies and she has worked in several countries including the US, Mexico, Tanzania, Mali, Ecuador and Turkey. She holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M university and an MA in Economics from Ohio State University.

Lena Zúniga Lena Zúñiga is a researcher of social media and new technologies in the developing world. As part of her work with Sulá Batsú, a workers coop in Costa Rica, Lena has designed and facilitated knowledge sharing processes and the use of new media for a variety of multicultural groups, cooperatives and NGOs, especially within the social economy movement in Latin America. Several of her media projects are focused on local groups using performance arts and storytelling to share knowledge about food and agricultural traditions. She graduated as a journalist and has a background in multimedia production and human rights.

Programme administration

Roser Nadal