TANYA STEEL is a global leader in the food world, with a career spanning nonprofits, media, and international public initiatives.

She was Executive Director of the Culinary Careers Program and the International Association of Culinary Professionals; since its inception has been the Award Director for the Julia Child Award; and is an award-winning author. She has written three books, most recently Food Fight: A Mouthwatering History of Who Ate What & Why Through the Ages, named an Amazon Best Children’s Book of the Year. She is the co-author of the award-winning Real Food for Healthy Kids and The Epicurious Cookbook, a New York Times bestseller.

Steel is currently working on a brain health cookbook, to be published by Ten Speed Press in Fall 2027, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic neuroscientist Dr. Marissa Schafer.

She serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Brain Health Initiative and was a support group facilitator for the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. She is a co-founder of Cure MAPT FTD, featured in a New York Times cover story.

Steel conceived and helped produce major international initiatives including Canada’s three-year Kid Food Nation program and the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge & Kids’ “State Dinner” in partnership with First Lady Michelle Obama. The annual White House event ran from 2012 to 2016, during which Steel was honored to give speeches four times at the White House podium in the East Room alongside Mrs. Obama.

Her editorial leadership includes roles as Editorial Director of Clean Plates, Epicurious, Gourmet Live, and Gourmet.com, and editor positions at Bon Appétit and Food & Wine. She also wrote for The New York Times for four years.

Inducted into the MIN Digital Hall of Fame, Steel received a James Beard Award for Journalism for her writing on 9/11 and, alongside her teams, has earned dozens of honors including Webby Awards, American Society of Magazine Editors Awards, James Beard Awards, and a NY Emmy.

She has been profiled in New York Magazine, Sarasota Magazine, Edible Sarasota, and other publications. In 2023, she was named a Social Impact Leader by the New York Observer, and in 2024, she has been featured on Fox, Telemundo, and ABC for her work with asylum seekers.

A frequent television guest, she has been on more than a hundred television shows, and made numerous appearances on national programs including Today, CBS’s The Early Show, Hell’s Kitchen, Iron Chef, Dr. Oz, The View, MasterChef, and Chef’s Table.

She was an Adjunct Professor at New York University; is a member of the National Museum of American History’s Kitchen Cabinet.

Born in London, raised in New York City, and now living in Sarasota, Florida, she is the proud mother of two sons.