Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a journalist and author of nine non fiction books. She was a Fulbright Global research scholar (2018-19), is on the board of directors for Media for Change, has won the MFK Fisher Book Award and the Grand Prize Award for Culture/Culinary Writing from Les Dames d'Escoffier International, a Kansas Notable Book award, and more. In 2023, she was awarded the Les Dames d'Escoffier International Woman of Purpose Award, one of the organization's highest honors which recognizes work in the complex realms of local/global sustainability, food justice, and public health. Nina continues to work towards re-framing how we think about food for the betterment of all.

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​Nina’s published work includes the award-winning Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America's Heartland,  The Pocket Rhubarb Cookbook, and Green Chili & Other Impostors (Chilies, Chhana and Rasa in India). Her upcoming books include: American Peach: 75 Recipes with a Past, and An Astonishment of Seasons: Waking to the Wonder of Nature's Smallest Shifts. Her low-literacy Tasty! Mozambique focused on human nutrition in regions with depleting soil nutrients, and the textbook, Food and Culture, 8th Edition, edited by Nina and SeAnne Safaii-Waite (Cengage, 2023), is being released in its 9th edition in 2027. The textbook is focused on health professionals and others who hope to work effectively with members of different ethnic and religious groups in a culturally sensitive manner. Other published works include the low-literacy Tasty! Mozambique aimed at improving human nutrition in regions with depleting soil nutrients, Savor Missouri: River Hills Country Food and Wine, and numerous stories and essays for newspapers and magazines.

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In other media, find Nina on Substack at Feasting Asia: the Secret Life of Asian Food in America, and at Wayward Readers. She hosts Canned Peaches, a podcast created with NPR affiliate station KBIA, The Missouri School of Journalism, The Missouri Humanities Council, and Harvest Public Media. The series focuses on the histories of iconic ingredients in the Midwest to reveal how we are already entwined on the plate. The series won two Edward R. Murrow Awards.

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Nina is the retired director of Food Systems Communication for the University of Missouri's Science and Agricultural Journalism program (2010-2018), and completed food/nutrition projects in Ghana and Mozambique for USAID and the McKnight Foundation. She was editor, then publisher of three business magazines (1987-2001) that she and her husband launched, and she has served as a judge for national journalism competitions such as the James Beard Media Awards, the Lowell Thomas Travel Writing competition, and others. She served in the U.S. Peace Corps (1984-86) and was chosen as one of its seven delegates worldwide for the U.N. World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. Nina received an M.A. in English/creative writing and a bachelor's in magazine journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism. 

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