Our Team

Robyn Metcalfe, Director

Desert running and a PB&J sandwich—what connects these topics? A tenacious curiosity to see what you can learn by just jumping in! The same sense of wonder that called Dr. Robyn Metcalfe to run the great deserts of the world has led her to take on the task of mapping our current food supply. A historian, desert distance runner, author, producer, and food futurist with a lifelong hunger to take on irrational challenges, Robyn Metcalfe marvels at what it takes to simply create a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

Her passion for the food supply chain and the future of food has taken Robyn across the globe to speak and teach as a thought leader in the food tech world. She is a regularly featured keynote speaker, with appearances at many notorious events such as SXSW, the Public Trust Summit, Aglanta Conference, the GoogleX Summit, and TedX Austin.

Beyond speaking, Robyn has taken a deep dive with the research and writing of her three published books: Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating (2019), Meat, Commerce and the City: The Food Markets in Nineteenth Century London (2012), and The New Wizard War (1988). Perhaps her most notable achievement as a food tech thought leader is her founding of both Food + City and The Food + City Challenge Prize, a non-profit organization aiming to support the future of food, and a pitch competition funding food tech startups, respectively. 

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