Continuing the Conversation With
Katie Stebbins

How do Tufts and universities like it partner with private sector companies to bring about sustainable innovations in food security and food as medicine?

I think traditionally you've seen companies partner with universities through corporate sponsored research. That usually entails one company with maybe one professor or lab that work together, and it's generally more research behind a paywall, etc. What we've done at Tufts is change the game a little bit and say, let's have a consortium model. Let's bring industry into the room with nonprofits, startups, students, and faculty, so that we can identify what the pre-competitive challenges are for the next 20 to 30 years in the food system. And so that's exactly what we've done and it’s worked really well.

The priorities we set are not set by the faculty. The priorities are set by the collective consensus of the room. And I think for academia to do that, it's really leaning into academia's power of convening. There's a lot of things academia does well. Obviously, research is what we're most famous for and for teaching students. But the power to be a neutral convener, it's a really great tool and I really enjoy getting to leverage it.

So how do you partner with the USDA and other government agencies at the federal level or state level?

The Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy is the only school of nutrition in the United States, and we have a long history of graduating students who go work for the USDA. So our relationship with USDA is very long and very intense. We have a lot of alums who work at the federal government in food, and it's a really wonderful space to be in. And I think for us to be a place that they call home as alums and we can continue that collaborative conversation is really important to us. Obviously, Tufts was a big part of the White House Conference on Nutrition. So I think it is just sort of a carrying on a legacy that's really important.

What are the most important areas of research in coming months and years for the Institute?

We are focused around specific topic areas. I'm really excited about the topic of sustainable nutrition. That group is co-chaired by Cliff Bar/Mondelez and Danone with industry leaders trying to figure out what are those metrics of success if we were going to start and measure our food economy through sustainable nutrition metrics, which is food that's good for the body and good for the planet. We don't have them currently. What would that look like? That everyone's reporting on bioactives or in that same genre as we look to normalize the conversation around bioactives, right? These plant polyphenols that are something our bodies have evolved with, but yet you're not going to find them on back-of-pack labeling. There's a group that’s co-chaired by Ocean Spray and Lipton Tea really trying to figure out how do we normalize that conversation around bioactives as part of dietary guidelines. Those are very exciting to me.

And then we're really leaning into health forward food entrepreneurs of color. If you are a food entrepreneur, it's hard to get capital. If you are an entrepreneur of color, it's even harder to get capital. And if you're in the health space, it's even harder. And what we really value is that individuals in this space are building a new economy and they're trying to heal their neighborhoods. And we think that's unbelievably important. Tufts has a big platform and a big mic, and we want to amplify the message of these entrepreneurs who are trying to heal their communities and trying to build their own economies and equity in this community at the same time. It's a really hard journey and I'm really proud that our Institute is leaning in on that, launching a new program called Satiated. We're going to start telling these entrepreneur stories.ft