Lenore Newman (Chair)

Lenore Newman is the Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley where she specializes in agricultural innovation and policy. She holds a research chair in food and agriculture innovation and is a past Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Land Use and Environmental Change and is an emeritus member of the Royal Society of Canada’s New College.

Lenore mentors in Creative Destruction Labs-Rockies agricultural stream and works closely with industry in the areas of alternative proteins and controlled environment agriculture. Lenore was a member of the BC Premier’s Food Security Task Force, sat on the BC Minister of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee, and consults widely on the future of food.

She has published numerous academic journal articles and book chapters, and her opinion pieces have been published in the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, Hill Times, CNN, and the Georgia Straight. Her first book, Speaking in Cod Tongues, was published to wide acclaim in January 2017. Her second book, Lost Feast, was published by ECW Press in 2019 and awarded silver in the 2019 Forward INDIES and was the winner of a Canadian Science Writers Award. She is co-author of Dinner on Mars, published in 2022.

She holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD in Environmental Studies from Toronto’s York University.

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