Dr. Johanna Mendelson Forman

School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC

Johanna Mendelson Forman is an Adjunct Professor at American University’s School of International Service and a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center where she leads the Food Security Program 

Through her wide-ranging career in international affairs, Johanna Mendelson Forman has built a reputation for addressing longstanding issues with new perspectives and innovative ideas.   Her frontline experience as a policy maker on conflict and stabilization efforts drove her interest in connecting the role of food in conflict, resulting in the creation of Conflict Cuisine®: An Introduction to War and Peace Around the Dinner Table, an interdisciplinary course she teaches at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC.  In establishing this link between food and conflict, Johanna developed a new interdisciplinary platform examining why food is central to survival and resilience in conflict zones.

Today her research focuses on the study of gastrodiplomacy and the emergence of social gastronomy, the use of food as a means of social impact and investment to communities at risk.  She is one of the leading voices in the global Social Gastronomy Network, a movement that is helping a new generation of chefs and food activists address a wide range of issues including climate change, food waste, and ending global hunger.

In 2017 she helped launch the Livelihoods In Food Entrepreneurship Project (LIFE), a consortium of organizations under the Center for Private and International Enterprise. This program, supported by the State Department, has supported Syrian refugees and Turks who are using food entrepreneurship as a tool for social integration. She recently co-edited a cookbook The Cuisines of Life: Recipes and Stories of the New Food Entrepreneurs in Turkey, published in December 2019.  It features recipes by refugee food entrepreneurs and essays about the way food creates community.

She holds a J.D. from Washington College of Law at American University, a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Washington University, St. Louis, and a Master’s of International Affairs, with a certificate of Latin America studies from Columbia University in New York.  Mendelson Forman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a member of Les Dames d ’Escoffier.