On Thursday evening, Sept. 24, Food Tank, New York University, and Rodale Institute will host Marion Nestle’s 90th Birthday Party at Climate Week NYC 2026. The evening will honor and celebrate Nestle’s legacy of advancing evidence-based nutrition, championing transparency in the food system, and empowering people to ask critical questions about the food we eat.
“Marion Nestle has spent her career teaching us that food is never just food. The choices we make about how we grow, sell, market, and eat shape our health, our communities, and the future of our planet,” said Jeff Tkach, CEO of the Rodale Institute.
Nestle is Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University and one of the world’s most influential voices on food, nutrition, and public health. She has spent decades shaping the national conversation on food policy, corporate influence, nutrition science, and the importance of healthy, equitable food systems. Nestle is also a bestselling author of numerous acclaimed books, including Food Politics, What to Eat, Slow Cooked, and, most recently, Sugar Coated, which will be on sale in the lobby by Books On Call NYC.
With live musical performances, toasts, cake, and a fireside chat with Nestle herself, the evening will celebrate how she has inspired generations of researchers, policymakers, journalists, and advocates.
To conclude the evening, Rodale Institute will present Nestle with the Organic Stewardship Award for Lifetime Achievement in Education. Since 2011, the award has recognized individuals whose work has profoundly influenced efforts to improve the health of our agriculture and food systems. Nestle will receive the inaugural award for education, recognizing her visionary work to inspire lasting change by deepening public understanding of the vital relationship between agriculture, nutrition, environmental stewardship, and human health.
“For decades, Marion has had the courage to ask the questions others won’t, challenge conventional thinking, and bring clarity to complex issues. In doing so, she has shaped how generations understand our food system and empowered them to think more critically about their role within it,” says Tkach. “It is a privilege to honor her extraordinary body of work with Rodale Institute’s first Organic Stewardship Lifetime Achievement Award for Education.”
The evening will feature toasts to Marion Nestle by food system visionaries including Jennifer Berg, Clinical Professor and Department Chair, Nutrition and Food Studies, NYU Steinhardt; Mark Bittman, Editor-in-Chief, The Bittman Project; Nancy Easton, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Wellness in the Schools; Kathleen Finlay, President, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming; Cathy Kaufman, Culinary Historian and Food Studies Scholar; Corby Kummer, Executive Director of Food & Society, the Aspen Institute, Senior Editor, The Atlantic, and Senior Lecturer, Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science; Frances Moore Lappé, Author and Co-Founder, Small Planet Institute; Kristie Patten, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean, NYU Steinhardt; Ruth Reichl, Author and Former Editor in Chief, Gourmet; Kim Severson, The New York Times; Max Sinsheimer, Literary Agent, Sinsheimer Literary, LLC; and Lisa Sutherland, Co-Author with Marion Nestle, Sugar Coated: Unboxing the Hidden Forces Shaping America’s Favorite Breakfast Food, and Interim President, Jacksonville University.
The event will kick off at WNYC-NPR Studios’ The Greene Space in New York City at 6:35pm with light food and live musical performances, followed by a reception until 9:30pm.
The birthday party will also feature special musical performances by Singer-Songwriter Amber Rubarth; Jake Pedersen, a Broadway and TV actor currently in Ragtime on Broadway, who recently starred as Boq in Wicked on Broadway and on tour, as well as Frankie Epps in Parade on Broadway; and Maria Caputo, a New York-based composer, pianist, vocalist, music director, and Broadway music copyist whose work spans musical theatre, jazz, classical, and contemporary music.
The event will be streamed live on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel, here. Join the Food Tank newsletter list for reminders, and click here for Food Tank’s full lineup of events at Climate Week NYC 2026.
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