Selena Ahmed - Juror
Selena Ahmed, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Food Systems at Montana State University (MSU) with research and teaching interests at the intersection of ecology, culture, and health. She leads the Food and Health Lab at MSU that carries out basic and applied projects on the socio-ecological, phytonutrient, and sensory basis of food systems from farm to consumer.
Since 2006, Selena has been focusing on tea (Camellia sinensis) production and consumption systems as a lens to examine links between environmental and human wellbeing. She has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to study the impacts of environmental variation and management factors on tea quality.
Selena has conducted extensive fieldwork in the tea mountains of Yunnan Province of China on a range of socio-ecological topics including biodiversity conservation, agro-forestry, terroir, indigenous management practices, organic production, farmer livelihoods, sustainability, climate change, market integration, ecological knowledge, tasting, and connoisseurship. She connects her fieldwork with laboratory analysis of the key phytochemicals that impart tea with its’ antioxidant and flavor compounds.
Selena is the author of over two-dozen articles and chapters on tea and co-author of the tea-table book, “Tea Horse Road: China’s Ancient Trade Road to Tibet” with photographer Michael Freeman. She consults on tea for private enterprises and natural resource organizations.
Her interdisciplinary work draws from discipline-specific training in economics (BA from Barnard College), anthropology / ethnobotany (MSc from the University of Kent at Canterbury), biology (PhD from the City University of New York and the New York Botanical Garden), as well as human nutrition and chemical ecology (NIH TEACRS postdoctoral fellowship from Tufts University).
TOTUS AWARDS PANEL OF JURORS
Since 2006, Selena has been focusing on tea (Camellia sinensis) production and consumption systems as a lens to examine links between environmental and human wellbeing. She has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health to study the impacts of environmental variation and management factors on tea quality.
Selena has conducted extensive fieldwork in the tea mountains of Yunnan Province of China on a range of socio-ecological topics including biodiversity conservation, agro-forestry, terroir, indigenous management practices, organic production, farmer livelihoods, sustainability, climate change, market integration, ecological knowledge, tasting, and connoisseurship. She connects her fieldwork with laboratory analysis of the key phytochemicals that impart tea with its’ antioxidant and flavor compounds.
Selena is the author of over two-dozen articles and chapters on tea and co-author of the tea-table book, “Tea Horse Road: China’s Ancient Trade Road to Tibet” with photographer Michael Freeman. She consults on tea for private enterprises and natural resource organizations.
Her interdisciplinary work draws from discipline-specific training in economics (BA from Barnard College), anthropology / ethnobotany (MSc from the University of Kent at Canterbury), biology (PhD from the City University of New York and the New York Botanical Garden), as well as human nutrition and chemical ecology (NIH TEACRS postdoctoral fellowship from Tufts University).
TOTUS AWARDS PANEL OF JURORS
