Johanna Mendelson-Forman

Through her wide-ranging career in international affairs, Johanna Mendelson Forman has built a reputation for addressing longstanding issues with new perspectives and innovative ideas. By recognizing the nexus between food, war and civic engagement, she has become one of the leading voices in the emerging movement of Social Gastronomy.

Johanna’s 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.

As an Adjunct Professor leading this ground-breaking curriculum, Johanna challenges her students to explore new ways of looking at diplomacy, conflict resolution and civic engagement and how food, as a form of Smart Power, can drive these issues in the 21st Century. In establishing this link between food and conflict, Johanna developed a new interdisciplinary platform examining why food is central to survival and resilience in conflict zones. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she heads the Food Security Program.