Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center to Honor Barton Seaver

Chef, author and sustainable food system expert Barton Seaver is being honored by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center (MCSPC) as a Distinguished Maine Policy Fellow at a reception at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, at the University Club in Fogler Library at the University of Maine.

This event, originally slated for Jan. 27, was rescheduled due to inclement weather.

Seaver works collaboratively with industry and institution leaders, policymakers, media and conservationists and is a leading voice for sustainable food systems. The director of the Sustainable Seafood and Health Initiative at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health spearheads initiatives to inform citizens about how menu and diet choices can promote healthier people, more secure food supplies and thriving communities.

“Esquire” magazine’s 2009 Chef of the Year also is on a mission to restore people’s relationship with the ocean, the land, and with each other — through dinner. Seaver is both a National Geographic Society Fellow and the first Sustainability Fellow in Residence at the New England Aquarium, where he educates restaurant and culinary school staffs about sustainable seafood. In 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Seaver to the United States Culinary Ambassador Corp.

The March 18 event is co-sponsored by University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Maine Sea Grant College Program at the University of Maine, Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine and the university’s School of Marine Sciences.

The MCSPC, a nonpartisan, independent, research and public service unit of UMaine, brings Fellows to campus each semester to teach an undergraduate class, engage faculty in discussions about research and public policy, tour research projects and meet with UMaine administration and graduate students. By connecting Maine leaders with students and faculty, the program stimulates interest in state policy research and gives policymakers a better understanding of the value of the university.