Tara has worked on food for over 25 years within both the NGO and academic sectors. Since 2012 she has been a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, a fellow of the Oxford Martin School and part of the Wellcome Trust-funded LEAP project. In 2005 she founded the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), TABLE's precursor. Tara has a degree in English Literature (University of Oxford), a Masters in Development Studies (School of Oriental and African Studies) and a PhD from the Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey. In 2015 she was awarded the Premio Daniel Carasso.

Dr Sigrid Wertheim-Heck is associate professor global food system transformation in the Environmental Policy Group at WUR, and is professor Food and Healthy Living at Aeres University of Applied Sciences, both in The Netherlands. Her interest in urban food systems informs her agenda on the relationship between urbanization, food provisioning and food consumption. Projects across Asia, Africa and Europe bring together three areas of research, namely sustainable food consumption, governance practices and global-local dynamics. Before joining WUR, Sigrid had 20+ years international agro-food experience in the private sector ranging from business development to market/consumer research, and marketing/distribution strategy. She has been strategic policy advisor for different governments on issues related to food security in the emerging markets of SEA.

Dr Annsofie Wahlström is the Programme Director of SLU Future Food, which funds TABLE. She holds a PhD in Animal Nutrition and Management. She has worked on research and development in cooperative and commercial settings both nationally and internationally for several years before joining Future Food at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Elin Röös researches and teaches about sustainable food production and sustainable land use from many different angles. These include assessing the environmental impact of different foods using life cycle assessment (LCA), calculating the climate impact and land use associated with different types of diets and comparing environmental impacts of different farming and food systems. She also works on many interdisciplinary projects looking at the economic and information policy instruments for more sustainable dietary patterns and how more sustainable and healthy food ingredients can be produced and processed.

Prof Elena Lazos Chavero is a biologist and social anthropologist based at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She is also a member of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and Socio-Economics of Development (EHESS, Paris, France). Her research spans socio-environmental vulnerabilities, food security/sovereignty, seeds and agrodiversity, perceptions of risks of climate change, reforests in landscape regeneration, gender and environmental local governance in territorial community management. Her publications can be found here.

Felipe Roa-Clavijo holds a DPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford, with a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Seattle, and is an ecologist from Universidad Javeriana. Over his 20-year professional career, he has worked in various rural areas of Colombia on local development and food security projects. At the University of Oxford, he led the Global Multidimensional Poverty Network, which involves governments and international organizations. In 2019, his doctoral thesis won the National Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities from the Alejandro Ángel Escobar Foundation. His first book, "The Politics of Food Provisioning in Colombia," was published in english by Routledge in 2022 and in spanish by Ediciones Uniandes in 2024 under the tittle Política en el Plato. He is currently a professor at the Alberto Lleras Camargo School of Government at the University of Los Andes. His research and teaching focus on agri-food systems, climate change, and sustainable development.

Matthew Kessler grew up in New York, USA disconnected from agriculture and how food ended up on his plate. After five years of working on and managing farms, a BSc in Environmental Sciences with concentrations in forestry and sustainable agriculture from Warren Wilson College and a MSc in Agroecology from Norwegian University of Life Sciences, he pays a bit more attention to where food comes from! Matthew is a Project coordinator and food podcaster at Table and currently sits in the Department of Energy and Technology at Swedish University of Life Sciences. He has a particular interest in what catalyses food system transformations (e.g. policy, climate, markets, movements, etc.) and who is being served by those changes.

Tamsin Blaxter is a Researcher and writer at TABLE. Her background is in socio- and historical linguistics and linguistic geography: she did her BA at the University of Essex, MPhil at Oxford, PhD in linguistics at Cambridge. This was followed by a Research Fellowship at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, in which she worked on understanding how spatial processes determine the big picture of language change—such as how changing migration habits lead to the disappearance of dialect diversity. She is interested in the making and transmission of cultural meaning and its attachment to place and habits of living.

Jacquelyn Turner is the Communications Manager at TABLE. While working on a dual degree in Program in the Environment and Screen Arts and Culture at the University of Michigan, she spent a month living on a banana plantation in Central America and that experience changed her relationship with food forever. After six years working as a producer and professional video editor in Los Angeles, she left Hollywood to complete her MSc in Ecological Applications at Imperial College London, where she also started working on a documentary about the future of bananas. She was previously the Visual Storyteller Specialist at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

Mirjam joined TABLE in 2024 as part of her postdoc research at Wageningen University. She’s interested in the informal part of food systems, because this is where, especially in the Global South, most of the exchanges in food systems happen. Yet it is also undervalued in research, policy and practice. Her PhD research, also at Wageningen University, involved a comparison of formal and informal market governance arrangements in the Ugandan oilseeds sector. The deceptively simple question of ‘how exchanges in food markets actually work and evolve in daily practice’ makes her tick. She explores this question with an interdisciplinary background in anthropology, development studies, sociology, agricultural economics, and innovation studies.

Margarita Arteaga holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Universidad de
Los Andes, along with specialized training in Senior Management in Business Sustainability from
the same institution. She also holds a degree in Strategic Management with an emphasis on
Communication and Negotiation, as well as a B.Sc. in Biology. She has over 20 years of experience
in education and the negotiation, design, management, and communication of complex Socio-
Environmental and Sustainability projects for organizations from the private sector, public sector,
NGOs, and international cooperation, in Colombia.

Ruth spent several years writing about the London arts scene and teaching English as a Foreign Language in London, Paris and Lima before interests in nature, climate and agriculture coalesced, and she completed a MSc in Environment and Development at the University of Edinburgh. After a period with Scottish Government working on Scotland’s Climate Assembly and climate justice policy, Ruth joined TABLE as a Research and Communications Officer in 2023. Her interests include the role of participation and justice in food systems, and how demands on our land and ecosystems conflict and converge. She has a BA in English from Cambridge.

Jack Thompson is a research and communications officer at TABLE and freelance journalist specialising in food systems. He grew up on a large scale arable farm in the UK but decided to study French and Spanish after being marked by long summers in tractor cabs. Years later, a friendship with an opinionated German farmer reignited his connection with agriculture, seeing food and farming as a meeting point for conversations on the economy, power, the environment, health and culture.

Rachel Headings joined TABLE in September 2024 as a postdoctoral researcher and writer. She has worked around food systems for almost a decade, with experience spanning local policy, civil society, non-profit, farming, retail, communications and campaigning. She completed her BA in public relations and sustainability at Northern Michigan University; MSc in food policy through the Centre for Food Policy at City University of London; and PhD in politics and environment at University of York. Her research has explored: school food policy, UK food system change, sustainable diet shift, policy paradigm shift, media narratives for food taxes, the ‘stories told’ by politicians about food, and how to effectively communicate food system evidence. Food systems, to her, are all about the connections and relationships they create between individuals, communities and the planet itself, so her research interests include: what are the ‘stories’ told about the food system by different actor groups and how do they compare; what are the levers to facilitate strategic and transformative system change, who decides whether or not change happens and who is served (or not served) by the outcomes of these changes.

Richard has a background in ecology and expertise in high nature value and climate friendly livestock farming. Before gaining his PhD in pollination ecology in 2011, he worked as a countryside ranger at a number of internationally important UK nature reserves. Since 2011, his research has included applying quantitative and qualitative methodologies to problems as diverse as guillemot breeding productivity, the pollination niches of buttercups and the research priorities for animal health modelling. His current research focus is on understanding the meaning and implications of different models of regenerative agriculture, and on investigating barriers to and solutions for more local, resilient food systems. Prior to joining the Table team, he was Head of Research for the Sustainable Food Trust and continues to work one day a week with the charity as a Senior Research Advisor.  Away from work, he is a keen walker and writer. 

Ana Elia joined the School of Geography and the Environment in December 2024. She holds a PhD in Social Networks, Gender and Community-Based Natural Resources Management from the University of British Columbia (UBC), an MSc in Forests and Society (UBC), BA in Forest Engineering (UdL-Lleida) and a BA in Technical Agriculture Engineering (UPC-Barcelona). Ana Elia’s role involves day-to-day management of the Programme by providing support to team members; liaising with international partners and funders on administrative, organizational, and financial matters; facilitating workshops and meetings; and supporting the Programme Leader on strategic development. Prior to working at TABLE, Ana Elia was Co-Director of CEHDA, a Catalan-Ghanaian organization that works for migrant justice from a socio-ecological perspective. Ana Elia is interested in feminist political ecology as well as in singing, as a vehicle for interculturality and ethnoecology. Ana Elia also takes interest in the mobilization of social networks (non-virtual) as a tool to achieve collective changes that improve our relationships with the environment and with our societies on a glocal scale. Previously, she worked as Programme Manager in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia (Canada) and in the Dean’s office of the same faculty. In parallel, Ana Elia works as an independent Organizational Development consultant specialized in social network analyses, effective collaboration, equity and inclusion.

Amanda is a transdisciplinary researcher focusing on co-creating more sustainable food systems in the Nordic region and globally. With a background spanning nutrition science, public health, food policy and sustainable food systems, she applies systems-thinking to solving food system challenges. She focuses on producing and translating research that could be used by food system actors to spur positive transformations of food systems. Amanda sits in the Department of Energy and Technology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Rebeca is a Research Assistant on the TELAR project at MESA México, based at the Institute for Social Research (IIS) at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). Her work focuses on exploring the future of industrial livestock farming and the potentialities of transition towards more sustainable and ethical food systems in México, in collaboration with MESA Colombia.

Her research centers on the intersection of animal ethics and food systems. Specifically, she explores the influence of Carnism in the establishment of Mexican cultural identity through its traditional cuisine, as well as the impact of advertising in maintaining this ideology. Furthermore, she has practical research experience concerning Animal Welfare in Federal and Municipal Slaughterhouses across three of the main meat-producing states in the country.

Rebeca holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Biological Chemistry (Química Farmacéutica Bióloga) from the UNAM's Faculty of Chemistry. She continued her education with Diplomas in Bioethics, with an emphasis on animal ethics, from the UNAM's University Program on Bioethics (PUB) and the National Bioethics Commission (CONBIOÉTICA). She also holds diplomas in Environment and Sustainable Development and Environmental Education from the Universidad Iberoamericana, consolidating an interdisciplinary focus on food systems.

Mathilde Douillet is an independent researcher and strategic advisor dedicated to agroecology, food justice, and transforming food systems. For over 15 years, she has worked across philanthropy, research, policy, and civil society—including as Director of Sustainable Food Systems Program at the Fondation Daniel & Nina Carasso, Chair of the European Foundations for Sustainable Agriculture & Food, and board member of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. 

Currently a Research Associate at IDDRI while working for the French National council against Poverty and Social Exclusion, she bridges academic insight with practical, trust-based collaboration among funders, movements, and policymakers. Mathilde is recognised for fostering inclusive dialogue, building coalitions, and supporting systemic transitions towards just and regenerative food futures.

Daniel Seifert has had the opportunity to observe food systems from many different angles in his career so far. He apprenticed as a cook and worked with friends to open an organic grocery store. He studied agricultural science and as a father of two, tries to inspire the next generation to eat good and healthy food. Currently, Daniel works as a policy advisor at Biovision promoting the transformation of the Swiss food system. He has an academic background in agricultural sciences (ETH Zurich) and development studies (IDS). Currently, his work focuses on Switzerland, but he has also worked in Central America in the past, and Biovision has projects in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as at the international policy level.

Ken Giller is Emeritus Professor in the Plant Production Systems group at Wageningen University. Ken’s research focuses on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular problems of soil fertility and the role of nitrogen fixation in tropical legumes. Ken joined Wageningen University as Chair of Plant Production Systems in 2001 after holding professorships at Wye College, University of London, and the University of Zimbabwe.

Jacopo Goracci has spent twenty years living and working on a farm. He now focuses on project design, food sovereignty, and the One Welfare framework, particularly in extensive systems. He collaborates with researchers, NGOs, and farmers to support transitions toward more practical, remunerative, and effective ways of producing food and caring for the land. Jacopo sees food not simply as a commodity, but as nourishment: something that connects the welfare of people, animals, and ecosystems, and reflects the quality of the relationships we build with nature and each other. His work is rooted in Mediterranean agroforestry and silvopastoral traditions.

Natalia Bellostas Muguerza is CEO at INTIA, a public organization delivering services across the agri-food value chain in Navarra, Spain. Natalia holds a MSc in Agronomy (Public University of Navarra), and a PhD in Plant Biochemistry (University of Copenhagen), having also worked as R&D consultant for Universities, NGOs and RTOs, raising funds across different EU programmes. In her current position at INTIA, Natalia engages with a wide array of stakeholders, from smallholder farmers selling to local consumers through short value chains, to large agri-food industries and cooperatives operating in international markets. This privileged view of the interplay between the local and global perspectives allows her to witness first-hand the challenges and dilemmas facing food systems and has allowed her to build a deep understanding of the needs, levers and barriers for the much-needed sustainability transition.

Mhairi Brown is a Registered Nutritionist (Public Health) and Head of Food Futures at the Food Farming and Countryside Commission, where she leads The Food Conversation and integrates food and health perspectives into agricultural and land use policy discussions. Prior to joining FFCC, she led policy and international workstreams at the Research and Action on Salt and Obesity Unit at Queen Mary University of London. There, she developed evidence-based policy proposals to reduce salt and sugar levels in foods and collaborated with stakeholders across the UK, Malaysia, Morocco, China and Peru. She holds a BSc in Environmental and Sustainable Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in International Public Health Nutrition from the University of Westminster. Mhairi is currently completing her PhD in commercial determinants of health in public health nutrition policy at Queen Mary University of London.

Laura Picot, PhD, is a Visiting Policy Fellow at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, where she leads work on sustainable food transitions and building strategic collaborations. She has a decade of cross-sector climate and land use experience, including as a specialist advisor to the FAO on gender and biodiversity, in leadership roles at Systemiq and the Food and Land Use Coalition, and in the private sector at PwC. Laura is a strong advocate for equity and inclusion and has led initiatives to strengthen ethics in international research collaborations. She was previously a visiting scholar at Cornell University CALS and holds a PhD in agricultural climate adaptation, equity, and food security from the University of Oxford.

Alison Rose has nearly 20 years of professional experience in the sustainable development field, focusing on climate adaptation, food systems, and agriculture. She is helping build the Columbia Climate School's inaugural program in food systems, working with an interdisciplinary network of researchers from across the university to develop collaborative research projects. She also spent eight years with CGIAR initiatives, first the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and then Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA). She is passionate about advancing sustainable practices and food systems to create healthier communities.