For Season 2 of the Don't Pretend We're Dead podcast, we're talking with women shaping the food and drinks industry in roles that don't always make the headlines - but should. Hosted by Corina Zappia and Caroline Marie.
On this episode:Corina Zappia and Caroline Marie sit down with Manon Galizzi, a food scientist and flavor specialist who worked at flavor houses and at McVitie’s before launching EPICSI, her own flavor consultancy. We talk about the two routes into a career in flavor, what a flavor house actually does, how Gen Z is changing what we eat, and her honest advice for women starting out in the industry.
For season 2 of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, we’re talking with women in the food and drink industry, in roles that rarely make the headlines but should. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Logo: Simon Inkpen at simoninkpen.co.uk
Animation: David Cohen and Lisa Jellinek at thatonenyc.com
Music: The Dead Zoo at thedeadzoo.com
About Manon Galizzi
Manon Galizzi is a flavour expert and food scientist with over years in the UK food and drink industry. In addition to working at one of the UK’s leading flavour houses , Manon has been a flavour specialist for McVities – where she worked on developing the flavour profiles Hobnobs, Digestives and Jaffa Cakes. In addition to her consultancy EPICSI, where Manon helps UK food and drink brands diagnose what’s really going wrong with their flavour and how to fix it, she also hosts the Food Lab Podcast, where she talks with UK food and drink producers about avoiding flavour complaints and getting outperformed by the industry.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dontpretendweredead.substack.com
Inside the world of snakes, snake experts and "snake bros"
vendredi 13 février 2026 • Durée 59:51
On this episode: What is it like to search for 14-foot-long Burmese pythons in the Everglades? What is it like to wrestle with sea turtles in the water? And what exactly is a “snake bro”? I talk with herpetologists Dr. Hayley Crowell and Dr. Leonard Jones about common snake misconceptions, hypermasculinity in snake-expert world, and Hayley’s advice to women who want to work in the male-dominated field of herpetology..
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing cool work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts, culture, food, journalism, science and technology. Let’s meet them together. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
About Dr. Hayley Crowell
Dr. Hayley Crowell is an evolutionary ecophysiologist interested in the secret world of animal coloration. The majority of her work focuses on large-scale patterns and physiological consequences of “hidden colors” (i.e., UV and NIR) in snakes and lizards (see her article about this in Nature). She is currently a lecturer and researcher at the University of Michigan’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dontpretendweredead.substack.com
Why we should be talking about internet inequity in 2026—and not just AI
lundi 12 janvier 2026 • Durée 38:10
On this episode: Talking with the editor of the forthcoming book Internet Decolonized, Dr. Henna Zamurd Butt, on why people still get unequal internet service and prices across a city like Chicago—and how communities are fighting back.
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing cool work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts, culture, food, journalism, science and technology. Let’s meet them together. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Mentioned in this episode with Dr. Henna Zamurd Butt:
Dr. Henna Zamurd Butt is an interdisciplinary scholar-artist and Assistant Professor of Communication & Culture at Columbia College Chicago. Her work brings together ethnographic and participatory methods with a creative research practice that spans curation, digital network-making, printmaking, ceramics, and DJing. She is interested in the cultural politics of sociotechnical systems and the possibilities of feminist and decolonizing praxis.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
“As a black trans woman, I'm painfully aware that conforming is not an option”
Saison 1 · Épisode 6
mercredi 22 octobre 2025 • Durée 39:54
On this episode: Trans Legal Clinic founder Olivia Campbell-Cavendish on why the April 15 UK Supreme Court ruling affects all women.
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing cool work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts, culture, food, journalism, science and technology. Let’s meet them together. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Trans and non-binary rights organizations you can donate to:
Olivia Campbell-Cavendish is a human rights lawyer and the founder of the Trans Legal Clinic. She made history as the first black trans lawyer in the UK (Garden Court Chambers, 2025). She has briefed MPs in Parliament on the human-rights implications of recent Supreme Court rulings affecting trans people and has served as part of the legal team supporting Dr Victoria McCloud’s application to the European Court of Human Rights. She is an ambassador for Stonewall Housing and was recognised by National Student Pride as ‘Activist of the Year.’
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
Using food "as a lens to interrogate power"
Saison 1 · Épisode 5
jeudi 10 juillet 2025 • Durée 36:12
On this episode: Talking with Isabela Bonnevera and Zoë Johnson, the founding editors of Feminist Food Journal, about building a publication that explores everything from the exploitation of women in dairy production to the politics of party food.
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing really cool work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts, culture, food, journalism, science and technology. Let’s meet them together. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Mentioned in this episode with Isabela Bonnevera and Zoë Johnson:
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
"I realized why this harmful side of beauty culture isn't really talked about”
Saison 1 · Épisode 4
vendredi 6 juin 2025 • Durée 33:18
On this episode: Talking with Guardian “Ask Ugly” columnist and beauty critic Jessica DeFino on why it's hard to challenge the beauty industry, the slick rebranding of skincare as self-care, concerning beauty trends right now and more.
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing really cool work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts, culture, food, journalism, science and technology. Let’s meet them together. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
"Innovation can exacerbate inequalities in society"
Épisode 3
mardi 11 mars 2025 • Durée 37:55
On this episode: Talking with Dr. Moupali Das on leading breakthrough research into a new drug for HIV prevention, the impact it could have for women—and the push to reach those most affected.
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing interesting work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts and culture, food, science and technology. Ladies who give me a shred of hope in these dark times—and who doesn’t need more of that. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Moupali Das, MD, MPH, is Vice President, HIV Prevention and Virology Pediatric Clinical Development at Gilead Sciences. She is the Franchise Head for HIV Prevention and oversees Gilead’s landmark PURPOSE program, which is evaluating the efficacy and safety of lenacapavir for HIV prevention. In 2024, the unprecedented positive results from the PURPOSE 1 and PURPOSE 2 trials were published in and led to name lenacapavir its 2024 “Breakthrough of the Year.”
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
"I'm interested in understanding history—and I use food as my vehicle"
mercredi 19 février 2025 • Durée 43:27
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing interesting work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts and culture, food, science and technology. These are ladies who give me a shred of hope in these dark times—and who doesn’t need more of that. Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Mentioned in this episode with writer and chef Marie Mitchell:
Marie Mitchellis a writer, chef and was the co-founder of Island Social Club – a space that was aimed at filling the void left by the erosion of London’s once thriving Caribbean social scene. Through her cooking, Marie explores Caribbean culture and food with authenticity and without limits. Conscious of driving British-Caribbean cuisine, and thus culture, forward, she develops her dishes by focusing on history, geography, and contemporary ingredients found in her locale and home in London. Marie is a champion of social, economic and political equity, inclusivity, sustainability, and supporting and creating spaces for self-care and mental health awareness.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
"Good writing never ever feels preachy"
Saison 1 · Épisode 1
samedi 18 janvier 2025 • Durée 33:14
For each episode of the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast, I’ll be talking with women doing interesting work right now in the fields of advocacy, arts and culture, food, science and technology. Ladies who give me a shred of hope in these dark times—and who doesn’t need more of that? Subscribe for free to learn about new episodes.
Ruth Mukwana is the former Chief of Section, Asia & Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York. She has held several positions with OCHA including as Chief of Duty of Care, Wellbeing and Capacity Development in the Executive Office and Deputy Head of Office for Sudan. Her experience includes training, protection, internal displacement, voluntary repatriation, advocacy, access and refugee status determination. Currently she is the Helen Hamlyn Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, where she teaches humanitarian advocacy. Ruth is also a fiction writer and was the 2020 Center for Fiction/Susan Kamil NYC Emerging Fellow. Her work has appeared in several magazines including and and she has just completed a novel. She is also the creator and host of the podcast , which explored how fiction can be used to raise awareness on humanitarian crises and drive action with a particular focus on war. Set in her home country of Uganda against the backdrop of conflict, poverty, and totalitarian regime, Ruth’s short stories explore what happens when women rise up and dismantle the status quo and become heroes of their own stories.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
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Technē Studio serves as the hub for Henna’s creative research. In March 2026, the Studio will launch Mehfil, a situated server art gallery inaugurated with everyday marks—an archive of images documenting her personal henna practice. The project unsettles binaries of right/left hand and active/passive, foregrounding embodied and habitual forms of knowledge. In late spring 2026, Henna will open a preparatory installation ahead of her forthcoming solo exhibition, Bodies of Knowledge, which uses ceramic and print works to consider the ethnographer’s body as a technology of knowledge-making.
As co-editor of Internet Decolonized (Oxford University Press, 2026), Henna has worked with her collaborator, Professor Marianne Franklin, to curate a collection that brings activists’ and academics’ writing into conversation, exploring how the internet might be decolonized. Her forthcoming publications include a comparative analysis of internet connectivity projects in Michigan (Digital Culture & Society) and an autoethnographic account of DJ practice as technē (Journal of Cultural Politics).
In 2025, Henna completed a postdoctoral scholarship at the University of Chicago. She holds a PhD from the Department of Media & Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, and master’s degrees in Global Politics (Royal Holloway) and Politics and Communication (LSE).
Transcript
Hello there and welcome to the Don’t Pretend We’re Dead podcast. I’m Karina Zappia and every episode I’ll be talking with women who are doing some really interesting work today in the field of advocacy, arts and culture, food, science and technology.
The way I think of it is women who give me a shred of hope in these dark times and who doesn’t need a little bit more of that. Today, I’m talking with Dr. Hannah Zimmer, who is a disciplinary scholar interested in how cultural politics shapes sociotechnical systems, power and Internet governance, civic tech, community media and tech activisms.
Currently, Hannah is a postdoctoral scholar working with the Internet Equity Initiative at the University of Chicago. where she’s examining community-based efforts to expand broadband and connectivity in the upper Midwest of the U.S. They’re also the co-editor and contributor of Internet to Colonized with Professor Marianne Franklin, which is coming out in 2026 by Oxford University Press.
I first got to know Hannah when they were working as the editor and director of Media Diversified, a nonprofit which challenges the homogeneity of voices in UK news media through addressing the underrepresentation of marginalized communities. They also founded Bear Lit, an annual literature festival featuring writers of color in London. Welcome to the podcast, Hannah.
How is Chicago treating you right now?
So today the warm day for Chicago Windsor, it’s like two degrees and we had like snow to my knees, but now it’s snow to my like toes. So it’s pretty temperate.
Nice. Very nice. It is. Warm and damp and wet in London, so you ain’t missing anything. So I wanted to start kind of at the present and work backward a bit. I’d love to learn more about the Internet Equity Initiative. I feel like technology is unperceived as making people’s lives easier and more connected,
but clearly this isn’t the case when not everybody has equal access to the Internet. There’s this quote I read by the sociologist Ruha Benjamin, technology is not creating the problems, It is reflecting and amplifying and often hiding pre-existing forms of inequality and hierarchy, which I thought was really interesting. So I was wondering, yeah,
if you could talk a little bit about University of Chicago’s Internet Equity Initiative a little bit, the goals of the initiative, how they’re carried out, the work you’re doing with them.
Yeah, absolutely. I love Ruha Benjamin’s work, actually. Her book Race After Technology is excellent. And yeah, I think her quote that you just pulled up really goes to the heart of what the Internet Equity Initiative has noticed and is trying to therefore explore through research.
And that is the inequalities and inequities that we see in society are reflected in the way that socio-technological systems work. I’d use that word socio-technological to emphasize something because sometimes when we’re talking about technology, it’s really easy to think of it as tools that are kind of separate and above and apart from society.
But to say the social before the technical is to kind of emphasize that social relations, so humans, make those tools. And therefore, if there are things that affect us as humans, they are going to get in some way transported into whatever technology we produce but it’s also not just
like a teen and tidy one-way relationship in that way that we design something and it exists in the world there’s a constant kind of like cycling so technology then has an impact on society that then impacts technology so their initiative initially started around the covid pandemic i think
As someone who’s been researching internet access for a long time, it had kind of gone out of fashion to think about internet access because it was kind of like a passé problem. In the West and in wealthier nations, internet access had largely been taken care of for people in like urban centers.
And so technology and tech-related research had become more involved with newer and sexier topics like big data and machine learning and AI. Obviously, internet access was still an issue for large swathes of the world, particularly if you don’t count mobile, right?
Because mobile had changed the picture in that it had expanded very quickly from when we only could rely on wireline connection. So what they noticed is in the city of Chicago, over the COVID pandemic, there were neighborhoods and areas where people weren’t able to access online services that were really necessary at the time,
like online education for kids…. Across the United States, it really put a spotlight on the issue of the fact that internet access was not available in all places and for all people. And it suddenly came really high up in the agenda. And so the Internet Equity Initiative started to explore in the city of Chicago, okay, where don’t we have internet and what does that reflect? And they did a study where they measured the quality of the internet on the South side.
And for those who aren’t familiar, the setup in Chicago is... quite a divided city and it’s q…
About Isabela Bonnevera, Founding Editor of Feminist Food Journal:
Isabela is a PhD candidate at BCNUEJ and ICTA-UAB, where she examines how urban food policies impact food justice for immigrant communities using community-engaged methods. She also works as an independent consultant on food policy issues. She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy and International Affairs from the Hertie School of Governance, a postgraduate certificate in food systems studies from Toronto Metropolitan University, and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Sociology and Journalism from the University of Victoria.
About Zoë Johnson, Founding Editor of Feminist Food Journal:
Zoë has an academic background in gender equality, food systems, and international development, and experience working in research, publishing, communications, and consulting. Her work for FFJ has recently been honoured with a Zelda Award for my design and illustration work and she was selected to participate in the 2023 Break Fellowship for Women Entrepreneurs. She is a graduate of the MPhil in Development Studies at Oxford's Department of International Development and holds a BSc in Global Resource Systems from the University of British Columbia where she studied food systems, with a regional focus on South Asia.
Jessica DeFino isthe award-winning beauty reporter and critic who writes the Guardian US’s beauty advice column, Ask Ugly, and has been called "the woman the beauty industry fears" by the Sunday Herald. In addition to her column in the Guardian, Jessica also writes a newsletter, The Review of Beauty, and has a monthly podcast with fellow fashion critic Emily Kirkpatrick, called The Review of Mess, which takes a critical look at the dregs of pop culture. Jessica started The Review of Beauty “to cover what traditional beauty publications don’t, won’t, or can’t — whether that’s to appease advertisers, preserve brand relationships, or cling to the conventional wisdom, outdated ideals, and marketing myths that keep consumers consuming.” Her freelance reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Sunday Times, Vogue, Allure and more.
Thanks for reading Don't Pretend We're Dead! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Transcript
Hi there. Welcome to the Don't Pretend We're Dead podcast. I'm Karina Zappian. Every episode, I'll be talking with women who are doing some really cool work today in the fields of advocacy, the arts, culture, food, science, and technology. The way I think of it is women who give me a shred of hope in these dark times.And who doesn't need a little bit more of that these days? Today I'm talking with Jessica DeFino, the award-winning beauty reporter and critic who writes the Guardian Beauty Advice column, Ask Ugly, and has been called the woman the beauty industry fears by the Sunday Herald. In addition to her column in The Guardian,
0:35
Jessica also writes a weekly-ish newsletter, The Review of Beauty, and has a monthly podcast with fellow fashion critic Emily Kirkpatrick called The Review of Mess, which takes a critical look at the dregs of pop culture. In her writing, Jessica takes on everything from the body horror of the wedding industry to the
0:55
double standards we set for gap-toothed celebrities we admire versus our own harsh expectations of teeth perfection. I first fell in love with Jessica's writing when I read a term she coined cosmetic cannibalism. our curious desire to consume beauty products that make us more consumable ourselves.
1:12
And my love for her work only grew when I read her take on the movie The Substance, which she regards as a feminist fairy tale, but that, a quote from her, its reflection of the conditions of women's oppression has been repeatedly mistaken for endorsement.
1:28
And so I really love that explanation for why some people are regarding it as anti-feminist. So Jessica is a bit busy these days, but has kindly accepted our invite to join us on Don't Pretend We're Dead, which we are very excited by. Hello, Jessica, and welcome to the podcast.
1:44
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
1:47
Awesome. I'm just going to get into it. What I often find interesting is some of the absurdist humor that can be pumped from this topic of writing about beauty in which I feel like you're really excellent at leaning into. The Met Gala is always, of course, such a rich source,
2:03
which struck me more than anything with your take on the Met Gala this year was not the writing on Zendaya or Doja Cat, but on Walter Goggins. yeah when you said if sabrina carpenter is an example of effort sold as effortlessness walton goggins is an example of effortlessness sold as effort yeah
2:23
and then you mentioned that his stylist wanted to create an unexpected look for the met gala and so what you mentioned was what's unexpected is not goggins's hairstyle which looks roughly the same as it did when he played a rugged and greasy-haired character on The White Lotus, but the work that went into it,
2:41
and then you go ahead on to proceed and list it, $250 worth of Moroccan oil products, including the shampoo, conditioner, detangler, volumizing mist, volumizing mousse, texture spray, texture clay, and hairspray. So I think of this a lot with some celebrities. I honestly often think about this when I look at Jarvis Cocker.
3:01
This is a man who used to keep journals on the exact brands of coat he wanted to wear in his band Pulp. So I can't imagine that this doesn't somehow extend to his disheveled hair routine that he has now in whatever 60s or 70s celebrity he's clearly modeling after. So I wanted to ask you,
3:17
does this often happen that many celebrities often spend a ton of time and money to look disheveled or something? They do.
3:27
I think so. I think the disheveled look is an aesthetic like any other and it can come from like pure effortlessness, of course, but especially in the celebrity sphere, particularly on a red carpet and especially Especially like at the Met Gala, that sort of disheveled appearance is actually a very studied,
3:47
a studied version of it that's actually meticulously crafted to seem as if it's messy when it's very precisely done.
3:56
Very, very precise. Good to know. Yeah, often kind of one of this because there's such a focus on women. It's the no makeup makeup, but I imagine there is quite the equivalent with men. So I just thought that was pretty amusing. Yeah. You also said something really interesting, and you had a recent article in Vogue Business.
4:13
And I thought this to me was really interesting, that in times of crisis such as today, instead of you would think like the average beauty routine constricting, we're in kind of this time of huge political upheaval. But you said it actually expands in direct proportion to political upheaval, what you called the aesthetic index.
4:32
And I didn't even think about this, but you mentioned during the Great Recession 2007-2008, The financial crisis coincided with the arrival of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which I didn't even put those together. But what also particularly interested me was COVID. I've always thought COVID is this time where we just let the beauty go, couldn't see.
4:52
Everybody talks about, I stopped wearing a bra, I stopped wearing a bra after that, whatever. But you actually mentioned... I was wondering if you could talk about this a little bit, that people were actually pretty focused, fixated on beauty code.
5:05
Yeah. The beauty industry saw a huge growth during COVID. Maybe not the first month of lockdowns and precautions, but after that... Yeah, I think everyone was feeling very out of control. And as I put forth in that Vogue business piece, usually in times of like political upheaval, when everything feels out of control,
5:29
the closest thing we have that makes us feel like we're in control of something is our bodies.…
Since joining Gilead Sciences, Moupali has leveraged her clinical HIV and ID expertise, clinical trial design and epidemiology skills, and passion for coaching and mentoring to build and lead high-performing cross-functional teams in HIV treatment and prevention. For the past approximately five years, Moupali has led the PURPOSE program and HIV Prevention Clinical Development with passion and empathy, revolutionizing how Gilead develops drugs, innovating in the science and in health equity, and laying the groundwork for global access. Her scholarly and intentional approach to clinical trial design and implementation with a focus on diversity and equity has been celebrated internally and externally by the scientific and advocacy community, as this brief profile on TheBody.com highlights: https://www.thebody.com/article/moupali-das-designed-len-study-with-black-brown-girls-in-mind
Moupali has committed her entire educational and professional career to HIV. After completing her A.B. in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard College, medical school and internal medicine residency training at Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Hospital, she came to University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) for fellowship training in Infectious Diseases and to University of California, Berkeley for her MPH in Epidemiology. She cared for HIV patients at San Francisco General’s storied Ward 86 clinic and attended on the inpatient ID Consult Service. Her research prior to joining Gilead included the development of a novel population-based indicator, community viral load (CVL), to evaluate the impact of treatment as prevention. Her CVL research was the basis for measuring CVL and using viral suppression to evaluate the effectiveness of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). She served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on Data Systems for Monitoring HIV/AIDS care. See here for a brief profile of Moupali’s pre-Gilead career: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2012_07_13/caredit.a1200079
Marie has written for Observer Food Monthly, Guardian Feast, Borough Market, Waitrose Food and Resy London. She’s spoken live at the DO Lectures, featured on Sunday Brunch, Broadcasting House, BBC Radio 4, and Jamie Oliver’s Meat Free Meals. Her first cookbook, Kin, a collection of recipes from the Caribbean and its diaspora was published in 2024 by Particular Books, and will be published in 2025 by Norton.
Thanks for reading Don't Pretend We're Dead! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
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