Johanna Mendelson Forman, PhD

Johanna Mendelson Forman, PhD is President of Conflict Cuisine®, a teaching and convening platform that uses food as a tool for social impact. She is an Adjunct and a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she heads the Food Security Program. 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. She also serves as an expert for the Social Gastronomy Movement platform, an international consortium of food projects that advises local leaders on how to integrate food as a tool for social integration. She recently managed the gastrodiplomacy program to support Syrian refugees and the host community in Turkey, co-editing The Cuisine of LIFE: Recipes and Stories of the New Food Entrepreneurs of Turkey. Mendelson Forman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a member of Les Dames d ‘Escoffier. In 2020 she joined the Smithsonian Museum’s Food History Program’s Advisory Board.