Michele Simon
Boston
-Massachusetts-
United States

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer who has been researching and writing about the food industry and food politics since 1996. She specializes in legal strategies to counter corporate tactics that harm the public’s health. Also an expert in alcohol policy, for 4.5 years she served as research and policy director for Marin Institute (now Alcohol Justice), an alcohol industry watchdog group based in Northern California. Her groundbreaking 2007 report on alcoholic energy drinks led to federal action to ban the dangerous products. Simon has taught Health Policy at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and lectures frequently on corporate tactics and policy solutions. She has written extensively on the politics of food, and her first book, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back, was published by Nation Books in 2006. NYU Professor Marion Nestle (who calls the book “brilliant”) has made it required reading for her nutrition students. Simon is currently teaching “The Politics of Food” at the University of the Pacific’s masters in Food Studies Program. She also serves Of Counsel to Foscolo and Handel, PLLC, the Food Law Firm. Simon has a master’s degree in public health from Yale University and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.