The Microbes and Social Equity working group, and The University of Maine Institute of Medicine present a virtual symposium on:

“Living in a Microbial World”
June 5 – 9th, 2023.
Format: virtual meeting, Zoom platform.
The full program is here.
Session 3: Integrating food systems through microbes
Wednesday, June 7th, 11 am – 2:30 pm EST. This event has passed, watch the recorded talks.
Microorganisms tie food systems together, from soil to food processing to gut to waste products, and microbes can be used to create sustainable food production while working with the natural ecosystem. Traditional ecological knowledge, place-based food systems, and food sovereignty endeavors have long known that integrated food systems require a broader definition of “health”. This session will explore how microbiota can be used to sustain and integrate food, communities, and ecosystems.
Hosts and organizers:

Dr. Tiff Mak (they/she), PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at DTU. They work at the intersection of Microbial Ecology, Fermentation and Integrated Food Systems, and are interested in community interaction dynamics and relationality, from the scale of the microbial to the planetary.

Dr. Sue Ishaq, PhD, Assistant Professor of Animal and Veterinary Science, School of Food and Agriculture, University of Maine. Animal microbiomes, diet and gut, microbes and social equity. Note, Sue helped host a little bit but Tiff put in 99.999% of the effort for organizing and running the event.
Speakers, 11~12:00 EDT:

Dr. Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann (she/her/hers) PhD., is an Inuk microbiologist from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). After finishing her PhD in microbial metagenomics at the Technical University of Denmark in 2017 she returned to her birth-town Nuuk, to lead the research project the Greenland Diet Revolution. Her research centers the animal-sourced Indigenous diet of Inuit. The focus of the research is the human and microbial culture of Inuit foods, and how these foods connect our inside to our outside. Dr. Hauptmann is currently an assistant professor at Ilisimatusarfik – the University of Greenland and a part-time assistant professor at The University of Copenhagen.

Dr. Kolawole Banwo, PhD. is a Lecturer and Researcher in the Food Microbiology, Biotechnology and Safety Unit of the Department of Microbiology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on food microbiology, safety assessment, quality control and usefulness of food grade microorganisms. He mentors young academics in the area of food safety and quality assurance in his Department and University, and is passionate about food safety and volunteers on food safety education to artisanal fermented food producers and handlers. His current areas of research are exploration of the food microbiome of traditional fermented foods to increase potentials in bioactive components and the production of functional foods and the detoxification of mycotoxin and metabolites profile from traditional fermented foods in Nigeria using lactic acid bacteria and yeasts in collaboration with the Aflasafe Unit of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. Kolawole is passionate about food safety and volunteers on food safety education to artisanal fermented food producers and handlers. Dr Banwo holds a B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in General Microbiology, while his Ph.D. degree was in Food Microbiology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a recipient of many awards locally and internationally. He was on a brief collaborative research visit in 2019 to the Department of Plant Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, USA. He is a member of several microbiology professional bodies.

Dr. Nina Moeller, PhD, Associate Professor Research, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University. Currently Associate Professor of Political Ecology and People’s Knowledge at Coventry University (UK) and a researcher in Sustainability Transitions at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), she has a mixed academic background in philosophy, sociology and anthropology. Her research interests comprise the dynamics of sustainability transitions, including their unintended socio-ecological effects; diversity of knowledge and value systems; and more-than-human relations. Her interest in plant medicine, fermentation, traditional health and food systems goes beyond research and has been shaped in significant ways through friendships and exchanges with indigenous Amazonians and subsistence farmers across the world. She has worked in Latin America and Europe – as academic as well as consultant to indigenous federations, NGOs and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization
Break, ~12:05 – 12:20 EDT
Panel Discussion, 12:20~13:00 EDT:
- Indigenous sovereignty on traditional fermented foods we want to research
- Microbiota Vault Initiative
- Style of agriculture tied to style of governance
Break, 3:00 – 13:15 EDT
Breakout room discussions, 13:15 ~ 14:30 EDT:
- Sovereignty on traditional foods research
- Food systems, governance, and sustainability
- TBD
Related to this session, here are recorded talks from previous MSE events:
- “An Indigenous Micro- to Meta-Narrative: Microbes and Social Equity”. Dr. Nicole Redvers, ND, MPH.
- “Analyzing and harnessing microbiomes from Soil to Society: Towards sustainable and equitable agricultural systems“, Dr. Frank Carbonero, PhD
- “What Connects Us: stories of working across difference with humans and microbes”, Dr. Maya Hey, PhD
- “Intimate Exchange and Queer Ecologies”, Dr. Gabriel N. Rosenberg, PhD
- “Teaching with microbes: Biopolitical lessons from fermentation”. Dr. Megan Carney, PhD.