Selena Ahmed leads The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) as its Global Director and serves as Dean of Food EDU, based at the American Heart Association. She champions food quality as a cornerstone of sustainable food systems, advancing efforts to map the biomolecular composition of foods and translate that knowledge into tools for human and planetary health.
At PTFI, Selena guides global collaboration, scientific innovation, and strategic direction to scale multi-omics research and empower more informed food decisions. At Food EDU, she oversees scalable offerings that translate cutting-edge science into practical tools to strengthen food system capacity.
Previously, she spent a decade as a professor of sustainable food systems at Montana State University. Her work spanned agroecological field studies, food environment assessments, stakeholder engagement, biochemical analysis, and community-based food and health interventions. She also developed scalable curricula to empower the next generation of food system leaders.
Selena’s interdisciplinary training spans the natural and social sciences, grounding her systems approach to food. Selena holds a PhD in Biology from the City University of New York, a MSc in Ethnobotany from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and a BA in Economics from Barnard College. She completed NIH-funded postdoctoral training at Tufts University, further deepening her focus on the biochemical and health impacts of foods.
Her work has taken her across the globe, partnering with communities and institutions to understand, protect, and improve food quality. She is committed on building the knowledge, tools, and partnerships needed to support food systems grounded in science, context, and stewardship.
Email: selena.ahmed@heart.org