We are living through a revolution where food has become the medium for a generation that includes chefs as political actors, farmers as standard bearers of environmental sustainability, and businesses who have embraced the notion investment in the entire supply chain is good for the bottom line. Food has become a means for young social entrepreneurs to use their business expertise to promote social good with new apps and new inventions. But with all this excitement can food build world peace? In an age when refugees are seeking new lives, can learning to cook build back hope and respect? Through the lens of food, we can explore how this basic component of our survival is also a powerful tool to help create dialogue and encourage conversation in these turbulent times.

Johanna Mendelson Forman has built a reputation for addressing longstanding issues with new perspectives and innovative ideas. She has become one of the leading voices in the emerging movement of Social Gastronomy. Her frontline experience as a policy maker on conflict and stabilization efforts drove her interest in connecting the role of food in conflict, resulting in the creation of Conflict Cuisine®: An Introduction to War and Peace Around the Dinner Table, an interdisciplinary course she teaches at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC, where she is an Adjunct Professor. Mendelson Forman is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she heads the Food Security Program.

Mendelson Forman has written extensively about food and conflict and Latin America and has lectured on food-related topics at the Smithsonian Resident Associates Program, Johns Hopkins University Bologna Campus, New York University’s Washington Program and at the United States Pavilion of the 2015 World Expo in Milan, Italy. Mendelson Forman holds a J.D. from Washington College of Law at American University, a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Washington University, St. Louis, and a Master’s of International Affairs, with a certificate of Latin America studies from Columbia University in New York. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.