Professor Warren McNabb

Professor Warren McNabb is Deputy Director of the Riddet Institute, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE), hosted by Massey University. His research interests include nutrition for health, sustainable nutrition, human-microbiome interactions, physiology and metabolism. 

Warren leads several programmes including the MBIE-funded, New Zealand Milks Mean More and the Sustainable Nutrition Initiative. Warren is also an Associate Investigator in the High-Value Nutrition National Science Challenge, Healthy Digestion and Infant Health. His focus is on food structures-nutrient digestion interactions, clinical investigations of nutrition, microbe-human interactions, and gastrointestinal function. Warren has had a long career in food science and has published >140 scientific papers with >6400 citations. Warren is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, a member of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology, a member of the American Society of Nutrition and the Canadian Nutrition Society, and has served on national and international research advisory and funding panels.

Emily King 

Emily King (MSc /LLB) is a thought leader in food systems and sustainability. Emily practiced as an environmental lawyer before focusing on ways to improve environmental and social impacts of food. For over a decade, she has studied and worked on food systems, a journey that's taken her around the world: investigating seed practices in Cuba, running a climate change adaptation forum focusing on resilient urban food in Germany, on trains across Canada and a bike tour of the US. In Aotearoa, she founded Spira in 2017, was named one of Food Tank’s top 20 global food leaders under 40 for her work restoring New Zealand’s food system, and has worked across the country to help cities, businesses, and communities improve their food systems.  

This year Emily hosted the Aotearoa Food Systems Dialogues, as part of the Global Food Systems Dialogues held in response to Covid-19. She judges the sustainability category in the Outstanding Food Producer awards, started The Kitchen Project, and is currently working on food resilience in her own community on Waiheke. 

Dr. Andrea Braakhuis

Dr. Braakhuis is a Registered Dietitian with a research interest in the clinical and health application of plant and animal-based bioactives. Andrea has over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is an Associate Editor for the Nutrition & Dietetics journal and is on the review committee for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Nutritional Genomics area and collaborates with AgResearch, Massey University, Auckland Cancer Society, University of Auckland Science and commercial partners. Andrea founded the Dietitians New Zealand Research Special Interest group and is currently employed by The University of Auckland with the Nutrition and Dietetics programme as the Academic Director.

Professor Derrick Moot

Professor Moot completed post-doctoral research in the UK on climate change in the 1990s before returning to a lecturing position at Lincoln University. He has spent the last 20 years as head of the Dryland Pastures Research team that has transformed sheep and beef systems in east coast regions of New Zealand from Central Otago to Gisborne. His research creates on-farm resilience to climate change with an emphasis on legumes to sustain animal production and promote efficient use of resources.