Amanda Wood

I take a transdisciplinary approach to try to solve food system challenges. This means I often work with researchers from diverse disciplines and stakeholders from different sectors to understand what knowledge is needed to spur positive transformations of food systems.

I have a background in public policy, so I often produce research that could be helpful to inform current public policy issues. For example, previous work has focused on the governance of food labelling, translating global food system boundaries to a national context, dietary guidelines, and development of the alternative protein sector.

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is communicating my research to those who shape the food system in their everyday work. I have presented my research numerous times to non-academic audiences including national authorities and ministries, health care practitioners, the Nordic Council of Ministers, various businesses, NGOs and foundations. 

Prior to joining SLU, I worked as a researcher at the World Food Policy Center at Duke University. My focus was conducting a scoping analysis of the alternative protein sector to inform the research agenda of the Bezos Center for Sustainable Proteins. I continue this work at SLU as a Duke Research Affiliate.

Prior to working at Duke, I was at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, where I managed and led cross-Nordic projects on sustainable food systems transformation. I gained a global perspective on food systems while working on the first EAT-Lancet Commission report. 

Current research projects include 

Rethinking the Global soy Dilemma is a project funded by the Kamprad Family Foundation. The project explores the benefits and challenges in today’s global soy system and rethinks how and where soy can fit in a sustainable food system. My part of the project explores innovation in the soy system – what makes an innovation ‘good’, and good for whom? I draw on innovation, sustainable transition and justice literature to analyse a range of soy innovations in the Swedish context. 

Co-producing pathways for a sustainable and just food system transition in Sweden is a Formas early career researcher grant running form 2025-2029. This research aims to explore, in dialogue with food system actors, how a just transition to sustainable Swedish food systems could unfold. Based on the just food transition field, I will analyze Swedish food policies to identify food-related inequalities and unjust impacts across social-ecological systems. In collaboration with Just Food experts in Finland, a comparison of a just food transition assessment in Finland will be conducted with the aim of facilitating knowledge and policy transfer and helping to fill the evidence gap concerning international empirical comparisons of just food transitions. 

The Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein at NC State is a 30M USD endeavor over the next five years to create a center of excellence and biomanufacturing hub for alternative proteins. The inter- and transdisciplinary Center brings together five academic partners and over 20 industry partners. Three areas are in focus at the Center: research and development in biotechnology and biomanufacturing of proteins, workforce development to train students and personnel in advanced food technologies, and capacity building to engage community stakeholders. My role in this project is helping to drive forward policy and stakeholder-oriented research related to the rapidly evolving alternative protein sector. 

My PhD from the University of Auckland in New Zealand explored the development and governance of front of pack food labeling development in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. I hold a Master of Public Health and Bachelor of Science, Honors, also from the University of Auckland. I received my Bachelor of Science in nutrition science with a chemistry minor from Indiana University.

See all publications on Google Scholar.

Wood A, Swan J, Masino T, Tørnqvist B, Röös E. Meat is healthy, green and vital to social and economic sustainability: frames used by the red meat industry during development of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations. Environmental Research: Food Systems. 2025; 2(1), 015010.

Wood A, Swan J, Masino T, Tørnqvist, Herzon I, Röös E. Clearing the confusion - a review of the criticisms relating to the environmental analysis of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023. A policy report from the Stockholm Resilience Centre of Stockholm University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. March 2024. 

Queiroz C, Jonsson A, Wood A, Norström A. The current food crisis: building resilience at the nexus of food insecurity, climate change and conflict. A policy report from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Global Resilience Partnership. December 2023. 

Wood A, Moberg E, Curi Quinto K, Van Rysselberge P, Röös E. From “good for people” to “good for people and planet” – placing health and environment on equal footing when developing food-based dietary guidelines. Food Policy. 2023; 117: 102444. 

Wood A, Queiroz C, Deutsch L, González-Mon B, Jonell M, Pereira L, Sinare H, Svedin U, Wassénius E. Reframing the local-global food systems debate using a resilience lens. Nature Food. 2023; 4: 22-29. 

Röös E, Wood A, Säll S, Hatab AA, Ahlgren S, Hallström E, Tidåker P, Hansson H. Diagnostic, regenerative or fossil-free-exploring stakeholder perceptions of Swedish food system sustainability. Ecological Economics. 2023; 203:107623

Halloran A, Wood A, Sellberg M. What can the COVID-19 pandemic teach us about resilient Nordic food systems? Nordic Council of Ministers: Copenhagen. July 2020. 

Moberg E, Karlsson Potter H, Wood A, Hansson P, Röös E. Benchmarking the Swedish diet relative to global and national environmental targets – identification of indicator limitations and data gaps. Sustainability. 2020; 12(4): 1407.

Wood A, Gordon L, Röös E, et al. Nordic food systems for improved health and sustainability: baseline assessment to inform transformation. A report for the Swedish National Food Agency. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm, Sweden. 3 April 2019. 

Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T, Vermeulen S, Garnett T, Tilman D, Wood A, et al. Our Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems. Lancet. 2019; 393(10170): 447-492.