Biography

Arielle Johnson is a flavor scientist and head of research at the food think tank, MAD. She’s also the resident scientist at restaurant noma in Copenhagen, where she works with the R&D team to translate scientific and scholarly knowledge into creativity, new techniques, and tools. Johnson received her PhD from UC Davis, where she was a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow.

She works on turning the knowledge and ethos of the kitchen into new inquiries and avenues for research, usually through the lens of flavor. Johnson collaborates with chefs, designers, engineers, and other scientists around the world to dismantle the boundary between the kitchen and the laboratory. She has lectured on food and science at SXSW, the Harvard Science and Cooking lectures, Wired, the World Bank, the London Gastronomy Seminars, and elsewhere, and has written for publications including Lucky Peach, Popular Science, and Nature Microbiology.