Progressing though my public health nutrition career, I was extremely keen to learn more about the multifactorial model of food systems. I wanted to focus and find a specific niche to study, research, and work on impact and came across the opportunity to be a member of the International Research Youth Team for the IFSS portal.

As an IFSS portal youth researcher, I worked together with a team of solution-driven and impact-oriented individuals researching on existing and new solutions, developing solution profiles and moving these solutions to impact through the backcasting process. I helped to facilitate a workshop that was conducted for the ‘Action4food Action4Change’ global leaders and I was given the opportunity to develop and present on a Cereal Banks backcasting map for the Sri Lankan context. It was a learning curve for me to explore and gain knowledge on how to move forward with solutions for food systems with the current economic crisis in my home country. I hope to use the experience and knowledge gained through this opportunity and continue using the resources on the IFSS portal for innovative solutions in the Sri Lankan setting. To close, working with the IFSS team has been an incredible opportunity to learn more on how we need to reimagine food systems to ensure both human and planetary health by a deeper system understanding for impact driven solutions.

As a Master's student in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen, I completed the "System Approach for Sustainable and Healthy Diets" course. Throughout these 4-weeks together with the IFSS portal team, I learned about the importance of adopting a holistic and integrated approach to tackle the complex challenges facing our food systems. Through my participation in the Academic Consultancy Training, I had the opportunity to apply my acquired knowledge in a practical setting and contribute to the search for consumer-facing innovations that could drive positive change in the food system.

As a student researcher, I was able to collaborate in adding solutions to the portal and delve deeper into solutions that aligned with my interests. Learning about the backcasting process improved my system thinking approach and gave me a deeper understanding of how to develop sustainable solutions considering the long-term consequences and their impacts on both human and environmental health. Both experiences also allowed me to broaden my professional network and connect with individuals from various backgrounds and areas of expertise, providing me with a greater appreciation for interdisciplinary collaboration.

My work with the IFSS portal began as a student contributing researcher where I would help research solutions and input them into the portal database. I helped out with a webinar with Nutrition Connect and Act4Food Act4Change explaining what the portal is and how young people may be able to benefit from the portal’s resources, including the backcasting tool.

I also had the opportunity to join the Act4Food Act4Change team in Kenya where we had a session hosted by IFSS learning more about the backcasting tool and how this will help young food systems transformation leaders in their projects all over the world. It was super fun to research solutions from all over the world to contribute to the portal. It is so encouraging to learn and read about creative projects that people from all over the world are implementing to solve issues along our food value chains. My research role with IFSS lead me to a consulting knowledge mobilization internship with Nutrition Connect, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s public and private engagement resource platform. Which in turn lead me to becoming the US lead for Act4Food Act4Change a global youth led initiative advocating and enacting a more sustainable food system.

When I first started working with the IFSS team I had just enrolled in the MSc program in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen University and Research. A big chapter of my life had just started and I was feeling confused and lost. The IFSS portal team warmly welcomed me, answering all my questions and doubts and involving me directly in the backstage of tons of projects. The team continuously gave credit to my questions and feedback, and I felt I could be both dedicated to the IFSS portal, while respecting my full-time MSc agenda. As an IFSS student portal researcher, I developed solution profiles and backcasting maps, and had the opportunity to facilitate a backcasting workshop for GAIN's 20th anniversary,

Overall, my experience with the IFSS team was explorative and clarifying. I got the chance to (freely, yet supervised) dig into food Systems-related themes, to connect with the many partners of the platform and identify better my interests. It was great to be part of such a promising and inclusive project, involving amazingly competent and passionate people from around the globe.

As an intern for GAIN through the Boston University Public Health Study Abroad Program, I worked on adding new innovative food systems solutions to the IFSS portal. One innovative solution I added was the “Gender-Sensitive Online Retail of Foods” solution which proposed the development of digital platforms targeted toward women who are disproportionately affected by food insecurity to allow for more convenient, safe, and affordable ways to order and deliver nutritious foods to their homes. Through the process of exploring and researching different food systems solutions, I gained research and communication skills and learned so much about nutrition related topics such as food insecurity, sustainability, and consumer choices. Coming from the United States as a Global and Public Health Sciences major, it was truly phenomenal to be able to experience the real-world global aspect of global and public health.

This cross-cultural co-learning experience with the GAIN and IFSS portal team was more than I could’ve ever imagined as it allowed me to meet and connect with individuals from different academic and cultural backgrounds who share a common love for nutrition and innovation. This shared passion among the team made learning fun and positively shaped my perspective on food system transformations.

The Wageningen University Academic Consultancy Training (ACT) is the moment where you can put your (academic) learnings into practice. This 8-week transition from the academic world to the consultancy world during our Masters program was a peak learning experience for us. Our collaboration with GAIN and the IFSS-portal was wonderful, we learning about consumer-facing innovations, the backcasting process of moving innovations to concrete action, we developed solution profiles on the IFSS portal, and we will involved in a larger scoping project for GAIN's theme on sourcing innovations in the food environment space applicable to consumer choices and retail promotion. Discussions with the IFSS portal team provided us a safe environment where we could ask questions, develop and learn, and be creative along the way. Besides learning and sourcing about 200+ consumer facing innovations (!), we learned a lot about ourselves and how we worked as an interdisciplinary team as well.

Working with IFSS Portal enabled me to dive deeper into food systems and expand my knowledge of global nutrition. I had the opportunity to give my contribution both as part of the IFSS Portal youth research team and also during the MSc course ´Food Systems for Healthier and Sustainable Diets´.
As part of the research team, I contributed to the creation of food systems solutions that were incorporated into the online IFSS portal. The process of developing these solutions profiles gave me the opportunity to expand not only my knowledge portfolio regarding 'system thinking approaches' as well as my personal skills, such as critical thinking, proactivity and creativity, discipline, time management, and work ethic.

During my MSc course, I worked with my group through the backcasting process and had to consider the enablers, accelerators, trade-of and more into the implementation of the solution -- which required a lot of critically thinking of creative paths to accelerate the impact of the solution. From both a professional and personal level, being part of the IFSS Portal team provided me the opportunity to connect and engage with incredible people from several fields and pursued me to learn and engage with different insights and experiences, as well as creating an amazing network. I couldn't be happier for deciding to join IFSS Portal team.

I'm working with Cornell University's Food Systems Global Change team's Wild Futures project to map out possible impact of upcoming agri-food innovations. This has involved creating an implementation plans for bacteriophages to improve animal health, reduce antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections amongst livestock, and boost food safety.

Working with the IFSS team helped me contextualize the larger antimicrobial resistance ecosystem and the work being done to address this multifaceted problem. Brainstorming with Françoise deepened my understanding of the nuance of antibiotic use within livestock production and what would need to happen for real food systems transformation.