Invited Speakers

Amy Bentley

New York University - USA

Bio:

Amy Bentley is a professor of food studies at New York University. A historian with interests in the social, historical, and cultural contexts of food, her work focuses on the cultural and political contexts of food in the twentieth century United States, though her teaching of food history ranges from early foraging societies to modern globalization. Recent works include co-editor of Food for Thought: Nourishment, Culture, Meaning (2021) and the award-winning Inventing Baby Food: Taste, Health, and the Industrialization of the American Diet (2014). In addition to her work as a food historian, she is involved in a wide range of food-related academic and applied projects, including co-editor of the Bloomsbury monograph series Food in Modern History: Traditions and Innovations, the Food and COVID-19 NYU digital archive, and co-founder of the NYU Urban Farm Lab.

Keynote Speech Title:

Decolonizing Food History

Harald Lemke

International Forum Gastrosophy - Germany

Bio:

Prof. Dr., philosopher, currently freelance, research project „Return to Earth - Utopology“ (Amsterdam/The Netherlands, Tenerife/Spain). 2009-2020 Professor at the Center for Gastrosophy, University Salzburg (Austria). Director of the International Forum Gastrosophy; visiting professor at Kyoto University (Japan), at East China Normal University Shanghai (China); at Slow Food University of Gastronomic Sciences Pollenzo (Italy). Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German National Academic Foundation, the German Environmental Federation Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Sciences. Various books and publications on Ethics, Political and Social Philosophy, Aesthetics, Common Wealth Economy, Intercultural Studies, Urbanism, Everyday Culture, Utopian Thinking, Gastrosophy, Conviviality.

Keynote Speech Title: TBC

Richard J. Stepp

University of Florida, Gainesville - USA

Bio:

John Richard (Rick) Stepp is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida, USA. He is a core faculty member of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program and and several other interdisciplinary centers focused on environmental research. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. His research and documentary filmmaking explores persistence, change and variation of traditional ecological knowledge. Much of this work has focused on wild and domesticated food and beverage plants. His work has also focused on patterns and causes in the distribution of biological and cultural diversity (biocultural diversity). He has worked extensively in Mexico, Central America and Southeast Asia. He has served as president of the International Society of Ethnobiology and the Society for Ethnobotany. Currently, he is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology.

Keynote Speech Title:

The conundrum concerning the changing TEK (changing because of climate change and social changes) and its possible applications for valorising local food heritage.

Sara R. Jaeger

Plant & Food Research, Auckland - New Zealand

Bio:

Dr Sara R Jaeger leads the Sensory and Consumer Insights Team at Plant and Food Research in New Zealand. In this role she has over the past decade supported New Zealand agri-food industries in pursuit of a greater consumer-focused orientation. Alongside this work, Sara is focused on development and implementation of novel methods for sensory and consumer research. She brings together these two workstreams in research that focuses on improved sustainability in consumers' food-related lives. Sara regularly publishes the team's work and presents it at international conferences. She currently serves as editor for Food Quality and Preference.

Keynote Speech Title: TBC

Gianfranco Marrone

University of Palermo, Italy

Bio:

Gianfranco Marrone is a full time Professor of Semiotics in the Department of Cultures & Society at the University of Palermo, Italy. He taught Semiotics of Food at the University of Pollenzo, and Semiotics at IULM (Milan). He has also lectured in other universities in Milan and elswhere such as Bologna (Italy), Limoges (France), São Paulo (Brazil), Bogotà (Colombia), Meknès (Morocco), and Jyväskylä (Finland).

He is the Director of the International Center for Semiotic Sciences in Urbino, and the Semiotic Circle of Sicily, Palermo.

His research interests include mass-media studies, aesthetics as well as literary theory from a semiotic perspective. His research in the field of semio-aesthetics primarily deals with the nexus between signification/perception. His most recent work has made an innovative contribution to the field of socio-semiotics applied to food, brand, cities, journalism, space, politics, advertisement, fashion, and TV.

Keynote Speech Title:

Collectives at the Table. The strategic use of pleasures

Roberto Danovaro

Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy

Bio:

Roberto Danovaro was born in Genoa (degrees in 1988). PhD in Environmental Sciences at the University of Pisa in 1993. Full Professor in 2001 at the Polytechnic University of Marche. Director of the Department of Marine Sciences (2004 to 2010), Director of the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (2011 to 2014) at the Polytechnic University of Marche. Pro-Rector (Delegated to the Research) at the Polytechnic University of Marche (2010-2013).

President of the Scientific Council of WWF Italy, Steering Board Member of OECD (Fostering Innovation in Ocean Economy). Member of the Scientific Council of several research institutions and panels (IUCN, UNEP, EU), editor in chief of international journals and coordinator of several EU and international programs. President of the Italian Society of Ecology (2011-2013), and of the Italian Society of Limnology and Oceanography (2008-2011). President of the European Federation of Scientific Technological Societies (2008-2012). Member of the EU Academy of Sciences.

RD received several Awards, including the World Prize BMC Biology (London, 2010), the Award of French Society of Oceanography (2011), and the ENI Award “Protection of the Environment” (2013). Nominated in 2013 by the Ministry of Education University and Research (MIUR), President of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (National Institute of Marine Biology Ecology and Biotechnology). In 2018 was re-elected as President of the Stazione Zoologica (2018-2022).

In December 2020 Danovaro has been recognized by ExpertScape as the top World Scientist in the Category “Ocean and Seas” for the decade 2010-2020.

Keynote Speech Title: TBC

Francesco Branca

Director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development at the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva

Bio:

Dr Francesco Branca is the Director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development at the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma. He obtained a PhD in Nutrition at Aberdeen University.

He was a senior scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition Research Institute (INRAN), where he was responsible for the design and implementation of several studies on the effects of food and nutrients on human health at the different stages of the life-cycle, and for the design, management and evaluation of public health nutrition programmes.

He was President of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies from 2003 to 2007.

Keynote Speech Title: TBC