Salameh, Bana

Bana is coordinating the research project "Evaluating and bringing to scale alternative food networks to address diabetes mellitus and hypertension" in Ecuador. Bana is a registered dietitian, she holds a B.Sc. in dietetics from McGill University and a M.Sc. in Public Health from the Université de Montréal. Through her research, she hopes to contribute to finding ways towards more socially, politically, culturally, environmentally and economically just food systems that are healthy for the people and the planet. She is particularly interested in examining ways to reclaiming food sovereignty among countries or populations that have become disconnected from their local knowledge and resources and dependent on multinational players and corporations for food. Bana also spent over 4 months in Haiti coordinating data collection for evaluating the efficacy of a maternal and child health program, and trained the subsequent field research coordinators. She is involved in various grassroots food initiatives in Jordan, her native country, aimed at reclaiming local traditional food knowledge, wild and native ecosystems and food sovereignty. She enjoys learning new languages, discovering and foraging wild edible foods, growing food, learning traditional food preparation methods and being active in nature, including cycling in Canada’s winter.