Marsha Smith

PhD candidate at Coventry University Business School, Visiting Fellow at Nottingham Trent University, academic advisor to FoodHall Sheffield, member of Nottingham City Council's Carbon-Neutral by 2028 steering group

Phone: +44 (0) 115 951 5151

Email: smithm93@uni.coventry.ac.uk

Marsha gained ten years’ experience in award-winning community food initiatives before returning to academia to undertake a PhD in social eating. She has worked for the Beacon as a community researcher and written pieces for our Future Food blog.

Marsha contends that public meals at mealtimes, using surplus foods, can be a response to food insecurity and food wastage but are better understood as a new form of commensality, or group eating practice.

During the first UK lockdown of 2020, Marsha set up and moderated emergency food provision coordination groups in Nottingham. She published reflections on this experience in The Conversation and an online special edition of The Sociological Review.