New Students fall 2018, part 2
We look forward to welcoming new students in the MLA in Gastronomy and Food Studies Graduate Certificate programs this fall. Get to know a few of them here.
Ashley Belmer is a native Bostonian who grew up in the lovely town of Roslindale. For her undergraduate degree, she decided to relocate to Atlanta, GA where she earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature and African Studies in 2013. As a child, she would always nag her dad to help him prepare his epic Sunday dinner that could literally feed an army. Over time, her passion for food began to grow from helping to prepare dinner, school lunches, baking masterpieces, starting a food blog, and now enrolling in BU’s Gastronomy program.
Currently Ashley works as a Digital Marketer in higher education. This allows her creativity to flow and explore the ever evolving digital space. Through this gastronomy program, she hopes to began her journey in becoming a food authority.
Lauren Kirincic was born and raised on Long Island, New York. In May 2017, Lauren received a BA in Sociology from Gettysburg College. After graduation, she headed home and began her job search. She worked in a few different industries but could not find anything that she was passionate about. In February 2018, she started working at Further Food, a supplement company, as their social media associate. This job made her realize that it was food that she LOVED! Upon this realization, she wanted to learn more about the food world! She has a passion for food, travel and writing. She has always loved travel and after studying abroad in Florence she was even more eager to eat her way across the globe! With a Master’s in Gastronomy, she hopes to be able to create a career that can turn her dream into a reality!
Sarah Hartwig is a transplant to Boston from Kansas City, where she was born and raised. Before joining the Gastronomy program, she was an Americorps VISTA at the Wyandotte County Health Department for almost two years, where she worked on food access and other food system issues. She worked on all kinds of projects from coordinating activities for a summer meal program food truck, to working with the Board of Commissioners and Planning Department to update a mobile vending ordinance, to organizing a locally grown dinner for local policymakers and community stakeholders.
From a young age, Sarah has known the importance of food for both person and culture. She is a granddaughter of farmers on one side and of doctors on the other. She spent many summers in Central Kansas surrounded by fields full of corn, soybeans, and wheat only to come home to Kansas City to see hungry people who didn’t know what a tomato looked like.
She graduated Gonzaga University in 2015 with BAs in Sociology and Classical Civilizations as well as a passion for social justice. She is interested in both food justice and sovereignty work, and is excited to learn more about many of the issues currently affecting the food system.
Carole Sioufi was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. After receiving a BA in Economics from the American University of Beirut, she completed a master’s degree in Management & Strategy at the London School of Economics. Carole then joined the family business – a group of commercial and industrial companies that operate in the chemical industry of the Middle East – and successfully expanded its activities to North Africa and the Gulf countries. While working on her last project in Dubai, she realized that it was time to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a food entrepreneur. Her first stepping stone is the MLA in Gastronomy through which she aims to learn the theory of food, hone her culinary skills, and grasp the role that food plays in our daily lives.
Carole is a passionate cook. Her love for cooking began at the age of thirteen when she was struggling with obesity. Eager to transform her body, she taught herself to cook satiating and delectable meals with a Middle Eastern twist. Not only did she lose a third of her weight, but she also discovered an aspiration to help others eat healthily. Her goal is to find a viable and scalable way to reduce obesity, namely childhood obesity.