Carla Ramsdell

Faculty - Practitioner in Residence, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University

About Me

I am a physicist, mechanical engineer and now faculty member who teaches about the physics of food and cooking with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability.

Beyond my "day job" I post educational videos on social media platforms, my blog and YouTube (#knowwattscooking) to help improve literacy about the environmental impact of our food system and choices. I hope to meet people "where they are" (on social media) to stealthily infuse this literacy.

I find that teaching physics from the lens of cooking makes the topics more "digestible." :) Once people can understand the conceptual science from this perspective, they can then apply this improved science literacy to the climate system.

I am a registered professional engineer and prior to my career in higher education (which started in 2008) I was a design and test mechanical engineering at Siemens Westinghouse, working on power generation equipment.

I LOVE cooking and the outdoors. Am an avid birder, hiker and home cook. Also - Italian.

Focus of current FEW-Nexus-based education work

My work is aligned with the ideas of the visioning document in several critical ways. As a practitioner-in-residence, I come to higher education with extensive engineering industry experience in the commercial energy-generation sector (Westinghouse and Siemens). Since shifting to higher education in 2008, I have worked in the food, energy, water intersection through my research, teaching and outreach on the physics of energy-efficient food and cooking. I am specifically drawn to this NC-FEW community due to its emphasis on forming interdisciplinary collectives to effectively solve our common challenges. I thrive in the interdisciplinary space and believe we will only solve these "wicked" problems through the break-down of this silo mentality.

FEW-Nexus-based education experience, expertise and interests

I have recently received funding to build an energy efficient cooking laboratory and virtual cooking classroom. This small space will continue to house my energy efficient cooking research but, more importantly, be able to reach students, faculty, industry professionals and the general public to help disseminate new knowledge in this area via virtual cooking demonstrations. I will teach PHY 2220 (The Physics of Food and Cooking) from this space and I have already used this space to host "lunch and learns" to RTI International and other on-campus and K12 classes discussing the energy of the food system. The possibilities are very exciting as this space can reach anywhere in the world!

I am interested in collaborators who can help me fully utilize this virtual cooking classroom to improve science literacy through cooking demonstrations and classes.