Christian was an enthusiastic student at BDC as he studied from Year 7 to Year 10. He was an active member in many clubs (he seems to recall chess and decoupage?) and loved to read books in the BDC library. He was a tour guide to prospective students, a member of the tech crew for school discos and Wolfstock (2000), and was Herbert Parchester (“the family solicitor”) in Me and My Girl (2002). The world view, skills, and experiences gained at BDC have been very formative to Christian.

Christian left BDC in 2002 to continue his studies at Glenunga International High School in Adelaide, South Australia. This was followed by a double degree in Economics and International Studies (Hons) at the University of Adelaide (2005-2009); and then a PhD in Applied Mathematics in 2014 from the University of South Australia. Christian’s PhD focused on the environmental and economic impacts of food waste in Australia. His thesis was nominated as a finalist in the PhD Research Excellence – Life or Environmental Sciences category of the South Australian Science Excellence Awards. Christian was also the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMMA), Young Professionals NSW 2012 Scholarship recipient – this led him back to Coffs Harbour for the WMMA conference!

As a post-doctoral researcher Christian has been employed as a Public Health Research Fellow at the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Aberdeen (2014-2016), where he looked at how healthy sustainable diets can be possible for high- and low-income groups. Christian then worked across 8 universities in the North of England as a Knowledge Exchange Research Fellow (2016-2020). One of the most fun things that he did was helping to develop “Take a Bite Out of Climate Change” games and educational tools.

From 2017 to 2020, Christian landed his “dream job” at the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), as Technical Specialist in international food sustainability: integrating healthy sustainable eating and food waste on a wide variety of projects and with multiple global partners including the World Bank, NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council), and WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). He even worked on the current Australian food waste strategy, contributing to Food Innovation Australia Limited’s (FIAL) 'A Roadmap for reducing Australia's food waste by half by 2030'.

Christian currently lives in London with his fiancée Ellie, and their daughter (2yo) Adelaide. He is a Reader in Food Policy, at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London. He teaches and researches sustainable food—and spends too much time on his emails, and not enough time playing music, cooking or dancing.

Congratulations, Christian, on such a diverse and important field of study and research.