Scott Alves Barton holds a PhD in Food Studies from NYU and teaches as an assistant adjunct professor at NYU and Queens College. He had a 25-year career as an executive chef and culinary educator and Ebony magazine named him one of the top 25 African American/Diaspora chefs. He is a fellow of Fundação Palmares and Instituto Sacatar in Brazil and the Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas in Mexico. Barton serves on the James Beard Foundation Cookbook/Foodwriting committee, the board of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, the African Diaspora committee for the American Academy of Religion, and has served on the Southern Foodways Alliance board. His research and publications focus on the intersection of secular and sacred cuisine as a marker of identity politics, cultural heritage, political resistance, and self-determination in Northeastern Brazil. He has lectured nationally and internationally, and been a frequent guest, as a scholar/chef on the PBS program, A Chef’s Life.