Kendra Nordin Beato is a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor, with a focus on stories that explore the intersections of gender, sports, culture, and food. She has covered a wide variety of topics from the serious to the whimsical, including efforts to save community movie theaters, small-scale farmers, and profiles of people making a difference. She was nominated for a James Beard Foundation media award for her July 11, 2011, magazine cover story, “The Big Stir: America’s new culinary renaissance.”