Meet the Team

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 a professor in the department of Planning, Geography, and Environmental Studies 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, which was published in 2022.

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

Lenore lives in Vancouver, Canada.

PhD, York University, 2004

MES, York University, 1999

BSc (Hons), University of British Columbia, 1996

Core courses:

GEOG 140: Human Geography

GEOG 314: Geography of Food

Lenore Newman researches in two main areas: agricultural land use and culinary geography. Her agricultural research focuses on issues relating to intensive farming, farmland preservation, crop innovation, and agritourism. As a culinary geographer, Lenore focuses in particular on Canadian cuisine and on the cuisines of the Pacific Rim, studying the relationships between cuisine and place. Lenore also researches the future of food, including topics such as culinary globalization, cellular agriculture, and the impacts of climate change.

As Director of the UFV Food and Agriculture Institute, Lenore leads a research program studying agricultural land use on the rural-urban fringe, culinary cultures, and the future of food. Through the FAI, Lenore provides opportunities for students to gain research experience in these areas.