Bobby J. Smith II is an award-winning author, social scientist and Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of the James Beard Award-nominated book Food Power Politics and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project. Dr. Smith’s research stems from the systematic study of Black people’s historical and contemporary relationships to agriculture and food. His work appears in leading magazines and academic journals, including TIME, The Conversation, Journal of Black Studies, and Food, Culture, & Society. Dr. Smith serves on the editorial board of Agricultural History and is a founding editorial board member of The Land, Food, and Freedom Journal, the publication of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance.