Dear IFTSA Community,

We are writing to share with you the current status of Science Meets Food in response to COVID-19.

The cancellation of Area Meetings and the transfer of IFT20 Annual Expo to a virtual experience are some of the many ways that the IFT Student Association has been affected by this situation. Additionally, we have had to adjust the Science Meets Food blog programming to accommodate the rapid changes that are occurring throughout our food science community.

You may have noticed a lapse in our writing schedule, which may continue moving forward.

Many of our writers are graduate and undergraduate students who have been impacted by the COVID-19 situation. The shutdown of face-to-face coursework and research laboratories across universities has hampered many of the activities they need to complete their degrees. As such, our writers have needed to take a step back from Science Meets Food to attend to more urgent matters related to their personal and professional lives.

On that note, we would like to extend an invitation to the community and ask for any guest writers to submit articles to our blog.

We would love to hear more about stories about food science during this challenging time, including personal stories of food scientists and food science students affected by this situation. Other potential ideas could be stories about experimenting with food in the home kitchen or remote projects being conducted for research or consulting. Whether funny, serious, hopeful, or entertaining, we would love to see more of the community represented here.

Our hope is to create a continuous thread of connection online and hopefully bring our community closer during these trying days.

We would love to hear from you.

Send us your story or article ideas at: iftsa.smf@gmail.com

We wish you good health and wellness during this time.

Sincerely,

The Science Meets Food and IFTSA Leadership Team