Meet the 2025 OFS Keynote Speakers

(Left to right)

Marion Nestle is one of the individuals most responsible for creating the discipline of Food Studies in the United States. Co-founder of New York University’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies in 1996, where she is now emerita, much of Nestle’s work focuses on nutrition, food policy, and the politics of food. In addition to academic postings, she was Senior Nutrition Policy Advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services and is a Fellow of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences. Her more than one dozen books, many award-winning, explore the scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, emphasizing the role of food marketing, lobbying, and the influence of industry-sponsored research on nutritional discourse.

Théodore Kaboré is the World Food Programme’s Head of Programs for Niger and Country Director of Action Against Hunger in Chad. With a doctorate in Agriculture and Environmental Studies, Kaboré has worked on the ground with farmer trainings and extension services. His 15 years of food security and development experience in West Africa bring expertise to issues of food security, drought, and sustainable agricultural practices, as well as supporting targeted research on gender and resilience, increasing educational opportunities for adolescent girls and decreased rates of early marriage

Ole G. Mouritsen is a physicist and professor emeritus of gastrophysics and culinary food innovation at the University of Copenhagen. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, president of the Danish Gastronomical Academy, and appointed Japanese food ambassador.  He is interested in the science behind food, taste, and cooking and has written books about fats, sushi, seaweeds, umami, mouthfeel, cephalopods, vegetables, roe, the green transition, and Japanese condiments. His current focus is on plant-forward cuisine.

Claude Fischler is a renowned French social scientist working in the fields of sociology and anthropology. He is Senior Investigator Emeritus with CNRS, the French National Science Center, and a former director of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Contemporary Anthropology in Paris. Starting in the 1970s, his many ground-breaking works helped to develop cross-disciplinary approaches to food cultures, and his current focus is on sustainable food systems and on the anthropology of commensality.