The food, agriculture, and healthcare industries are immense segments of our economy with an outsized potential for impact—not only on healthier living, but also on sustainability and equity.
Since 2020, Katie Stebbins has been executive director of the Food and Nutrition Innovation Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. From her vantage point, she sees huge potential dividends in fostering radical innovation in those industries.
Recently Tufts Now sat down with Stebbins to get her take on where the biggest opportunities lie, and how the institute is stimulating conversations and research, while training a new generation of experts to cultivate a robust, science-driven ecosystem of food, agriculture, and wellness innovation and entrepreneurship that increases equity, sustainability, and longevity for all.
How does your background—which isn’t in healthcare or nutrition—contribute to your current role?
I started my career as an environmental planner for the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, and then became the executive director for the Holyoke Innovation District before joining Governor Baker’s administration as the Commonwealth’s first “Tech, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” assistant secretary. Later, I was vice president of economic development and chief economic development officer for the University of Massachusetts’ five campuses. I’ve also launched two startups. Through these roles, I worked on community health, economic development, and urban planning, each of which touched food and nutrition in some way.
Through this work, I have honed my skills in building innovation ecosystems, an economic development model focused on systems change through technology-focused solutions. Food and nutrition are complex related systems that benefit from this model. Layered into this role is the chance to collaborate with and learn from the incredible expertise and creativity of the faculty all around me at Friedman, and at the other schools at Tufts. I’m learning so much from them.
What brings you to the Friedman School?
Health care and food are huge two industries in need of innovation and entrepreneurship.
As both a part of Tufts, and also the only freestanding school of nutrition in the United States, the Friedman School, the Food & Nutrition Innovation Institute is in a unique position to convene academics, medical experts, industry leaders, and government officials to focus on ways those two industries can help people lead lives that are both longer and healthier.
What in your view is the interplay among food, longevity and the environment and sustainability?
Longevity to me means living a long life as relatively disease-free as possible. We need to optimize our food supply simultaneously for longevity, equity, and the environment.
For example, avocados are a superfood that research shows deliver multiple benefits to our body systems. So, the market for avocados expands, but avocados are water-intensive to grow. Farmers discover they can make more money growing avocados rather than oranges, so they shift from growing oranges to avocados. This puts tremendous demands on a scarce water supply. Almonds, another superfood, have a similar effect. Market surges on foods that are ‘good for us’ have the potential to harm the environment. We need to address those competing imperatives.
Agriculture is also home to some of the dullest, dirtiest, lowest-paying jobs. This is where synthetic biology becomes interesting as we focus on both the environment and equity.
How is your program working with the food and healthcare industries to encourage innovation?
We have a council with more than 90 members from for-profit and non-profit organizations, including startups, in the food and health care fields. Our council convenes at regular intervals to hear from Tufts experts, government experts, and to share information from members’ own organizations.
We are teaming up with one of our council company members, Nestlé Health Science, to start what we are calling Innovate Forward: The Longevity Challenge. The challenge is a competition focused on cognitive, gut, and metabolic health. The goal is to identify new, innovative ideas percolating in startups focused in those areas, and to provide winners of the challenge with up to six months of mentoring and a year’s membership on our council so they can get help from people at Tufts and from industry to develop their ideas.