This blog will empower you to…
- Spot food safety & nutrition myths
- Understand the GMO debate and other hot-button topics
- Wow your friends with cool facts about plants
- Engage in smart conversations about science & society
I’m a PhD scientist with ten years of laboratory research and science communication experience, and I’m obsessed with food…and beer. My goal is to equip consumers (that’s all of us) to make confident choices about what we put on our tables.
This blog will help you conquer mealtime uncertainties and take control of your food environment for a happier, healthier, greener future. Because the only thing you should worry about at mealtime, is what beer pairs best with your low maintenance meals.
Full Bio:
As a PhD student at UC Davis, I studied the factors that control gene activity in plants. In my free time, I explored topics from agricultural economics to nutrition through blogs, videos, social media, and teaching. I even helped pioneer a science outreach group called Science Says.
After graduate school, I interned as a science reporter at the Washington Post; did a postdoc in synthetic biology at Colorado State University; and served as the News Editor for the Oxford Journal Synthetic Biology.
Now, I am the Director of Scientific Marketing at Samba Scientific, a marketing agency that helps life science companies communicate about their tech to potential customers in a compelling way. I also contribute occasionally to scientific news pubs including Alliance for Science and synbiobeta. You can find a list of my peer-reviewed publications here and science news publications here.
Why I blog:
My 9-5 let’s me pursue one of my passions, science communication. Science is fascinating, but scientists are terrible at talking about it.
My day job also helps me bring home the bacon, so I can pursue my other passion…bacon. Well, all foods really, but for some reason people really loose their minds about bacon.
I’ve studied nematodes, plants, pesticides, yeast, and cybersecurity. I’ve written about neuroscience, antibiotics, climate change, and pollution. But I keep coming back to food and nutrition.
Food is personal. We crave it, we can’t live without it, and -here in the US- we’re often faced with an abundance of choice. Those choices can be confusing. Especially when headlines flip flop about whether coffee will kill you or make you immortal every other day.
My goal is to help everyday people navigate food choices by combining my scientific know-how, the stack of food science books I chew through constantly, and my own experience as an enthusiastic, but very amateur cook who refuses to uses recipes and specializes in “creative use of leftovers.”
Who should read on:
If you’ve made it this far, you must be intrigued by the idea of sprinkling a little more science into your diet. You probably think about food more than the average person, and you’re hungry to learn more. Read on.
If you have kids and you’re terrified about what to feed them, how to afford it, or how to fit grocery shopping and cooking into your busy schedule, I can help. Read on.
If you’re looking for the next great dieting blog, this is not the place for you. I will write about ways to eat healthy, but “dieting,” as a rule, does not work. Also, I am not a registered dietitian, and they are the only people you should be listening to on that front. That or your primary care provider.
Escaping The Bench 