A new leader for the Global Food Institute

GW’s Global Food Institute appoints Executive Director Stacy Dean

Good morning, friends, I hope you all had an amazing weekend. Did you celebrate the solstice with fire and festivities, like we do in Spain (even if you didn’t, did you make our amazing coca? Let me know what you thought!)? 

I know it has been very hot in many parts of the country, and while I love the summertime, those high temperatures can be very hard on people, wildlife, and crops. We want to do what we can to make sure everyone has what they need—always, of course, but especially during extreme events.

Which brings me to a topic that I care about deeply: the Global Food Institute (GFI). While I have been teaching a class at The George Washington University since 2013, we officially founded the GFI at GW last year, with the idea that we can, through cross-disciplinary learning, look at food as a way to address the world’s most urgent problems. As we talked about last week in my MasterClass, and as I do again and again (because, people, this is the most important thing to remember!), food has the power to bring us together, to change lives, and to create a better future for everyone. By creating the GFI, we are putting a spotlight on global food policies and leading critical conversations about the impact of food on humans and our planet.  

Photo by Abby Greenawalt Photography

Among other things, the GFI is creating a first of its kind cross-disciplinary academic minor in Food Leadership. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, GFI will be offering 8 brand new courses starting this fall. These courses will cover topics such as culinary diplomacy, sustainable food chains, federal stakeholders in food policy, sustainable food systems, culinary medicine, food workers’ rights, modeling the food system and cultivating food justice. I will definitely talk more about this in the coming weeks, because it really is an amazing program, and perhaps you know someone who might be interested in this field of study—or maybe you want to go back to school! 

But people, I am definitely burying the main point here—today I want to introduce you to GFI’s first-ever Executive Director, Stacy Dean! Stacy has been a national leader on food and nutrition policy for over 20 years. She most recently served as the Deputy Under Secretary for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) where, on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration and my good friend Secretary Tom Vilsack, she led the charge to increase nutrition assistance programs—helping to modernize how food assistance works so that it can be more dignified and equitable to those who need it. Before she was at the USDA, she was the Vice President for Food Assistance Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, where she found ways to create and implement more effective food assistance policies—including enabling tech companies to provide innovative solutions that allow farmer’s markets to integrate with SNAP benefits, which in turn provides more farm fresh food access to SNAP recipients. I got to know Stacey back in 2021 when President Biden made a commitment to host the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in more than 50 years. She became a leader of the “whole of government” approach to organizing the conference and creating a national strategy to end hunger and build healthier communities.

Stacy Dean, the new Executive Director of GFI. Photo courtesy of GWU.

As Executive Director of GFI, Stacy will be the voice of the Institute’s strategic initiatives, and ensure that new opportunities, programs, and partnerships are at the forefront of the global food narrative. The huge challenges facing our global food system means that we need a passionate leader of Stacy’s caliber, with a profound understanding of the issues and the drive to effect change. I’m thrilled to work with her as we usher in a new era of impact for the Institute.

So—please welcome Stacy to the Institute, and stay tuned for more updates as the semester gets closer!

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And in the spirit of celebrating Stacy’s appointment, and of continuing to find ways for food to help solve the world’s problems, I want to raise a glass to my late friend Anthony Bourdain. Tomorrow is Bourdain Day, Tony’s 68th birthday. My friend Eric Ripert and I created this holiday to celebrate what Tony did for the world, and how he used food to break down walls and build longer tables. He will always be missed terribly by all of us, but we can celebrate his legacy as we continue to work towards solutions for a better world.

Tony and me at the original minibar in 2009.