Mallory Cerkleski (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. She holds an M.A. in Food Innovation and Management from the University of Gastronomic Sciences and dual B.A. degrees in Sustainable Food Systems and Political Science from Guilford College. Her doctoral project consists of a comparative history of the lived experiences of communist food systems in Cuba and Kerala using oral history and archival methodologies. 

Mallory's research on food justice and sovereignty has been published in various journals. She also authored the essay “Resolver and Rebusque: The State of Cuban Land and Food Sovereignty” in the book Food Sovereignty and Land Grabbing. She is a board member of the Graduate Association for Food Studies, a co-editor of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies, and leads the “Culinary Chronicles” project/book, which explores cultural heritage through oral histories using food as a tool and lens. 

She served as an adjunct professor at the University of Padova, teaching the course Italian Food and Wine History, and is currently (as of February 2025) a visiting scholar at the Center for Development Studies in Trivandrum, Kerala. Her extensive fieldwork includes projects in Cuba, India, Malawi, and the U.S., and she has presented her research at various international conferences.