About

Matthew Booker is an environmental historian with a focus on urban waste management and water infrastructure. His work explores the historical development of sanitation systems, emphasizing how the separation of drinking water from wastewater has significantly impacted public health and urban development. Booker advocates for reframing wastewater from a problem into a resource, highlighting the potential for recycling and reuse to create more sustainable and equitable water systems. He emphasizes the importance of learning from historical and global examples to address current challenges related to urbanization, climate change, and water access. His research underscores the moral, economic, and societal benefits of innovative waste management practices, promoting a circular economy approach that treats waste as an opportunity rather than merely a problem.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Fishery
• Genetics
• Food science

Selected publications

• Seed Oyster Inspection, Matsushima Bay (circa 1958)

  Environmental History · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This gallery essay opens with a photograph of people in northeastern Japan’s Matsushima Bay packing seed oysters for export to the North American Pacific Northwest. The photo offers opportunities to think about Matsushima Bay, and other sites like Washington State’s Willapa Bay, as transpacific tidelands, all shaped by diverse attempts to foster and restrict the movements of oysters, people, and nonhuman shellfish pests. Along the way, the essay presents a framework for analyzing aquaculture in terms of mobility, labor, and (dis)connections that reach far beyond any single stretch of coast.

  PublisherDOI

• Sweetness, Power, Yeasts and Entomo-terroir

  Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) · 2022-01-01

  articleSenior author

  Yeasts are single-celled fungi. They are essential components of the modern<br/>world, ours and theirs, and yet their stories are hidden. Their consequences<br/>often take centre stage, but they themselves are rarely featured, whether in<br/>history, art, or even science. This absence has taken on new importance as<br/>it is realized that some yeast species may have begun to go extinct. These<br/>yeasts are threatened, of all things, by the declines in insect populations and,<br/>of course, indirectly and directly, by us. But this is the end of the story –<br/>let us start a little earlier.

  Publisher

• Chapter 14. Sweetness, Power, Yeasts and Entomo-terroir

  Berghahn Books · 2022-12-31

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  Yeasts are single-celled fungi.Th ey are essential components of the modern world, ours and theirs, and yet their stories are hidden.Th eir consequences often take centre stage, but they themselves are rarely featured, whether in history, art, or even science.Th is absence has taken on new importance as it is realized that some yeast species may have begun to go extinct.Th ese yeasts are threatened, of all things, by the declines in insect populations and, of course, indirectly and directly, by us.But this is the end of the storylet us start a little earlier. BeforeIn the beginning, before humans evolved, before farms were planted, yeasts lived quiet lives immersed in the small patches of sweet things that can be found in nature -the nectar in the cups of fl owers, the sap that leaks from oak trees, the honeydew that pours from aphids and scale insects, the fl ecks of sugar on oak leaves.In each of these bits of sweetness, the yeast consumed sugars.As waste, they exhaled carbon dioxide and excreted alcohol.Yeasts thrive on sugar.For most species, it is their ancient necessity.Yet, this necessity poses a challenge.Th e yeasts must fi nd the sugar in the fi rst place.Th ey must fi nd sugar even though they lack legs and wings, and even though, unlike bacteria, they do not readily become airborne.From the perspective of yeasts, all of the patches of sugar in the world, from Chapter 14 Sweetness, Power, Yeasts and Entomo-terroir

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Chapter 14. Sweetness, Power, Yeasts and Entomo-terroir

  Berghahn Books · 2022-09-07

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Filth into Food? Lessons from the Past

  2022-08-11

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Waste disposal is one of the greatest environmental challenges we face today. It is also an ancient problem faced by our ancestors. Matthew Morse Booker, Ph.D., explores: does the recent past offer any useful solutions (or warnings) for our current crisis? The rise, fall and revival of the urban oysters — which turn filth into food by filtering water and recycling urban waste into urban food, but can also be a vector for disease — offer intriguing insights.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The status of striped bass,<scp><i>Morone saxatilis</i>,</scp>as a commercially ready species for U.S. marine aquaculture

  Journal of the World Aquaculture Society · 2021 · 24 citations

  • Fishery
  • Biology
  • Ecology

  Abstract Striped bass, Morone saxatilis , is an anadromous fish native to the North American Atlantic Coast and is well recognized as one of the most important and highly regarded recreational fisheries in the United States. Decades of research have been conducted on striped bass and its hybrid (striped bass × white bass Morone chrysops ) and culture methods have been established, particularly for the hybrid striped bass, the fourth largest finfish aquaculture industry in the United States (US $50 million). Domesticated striped bass have been developed since the 1990s and broodstock are available from the government for commercial fry production using novel hormone‐free methods along with traditional hormone‐induced tank and strip spawning. No commercial‐scale intensive larval rearing technologies have been developed at present and current fingerling production is conducted in fertilized freshwater ponds. Larval diets have not been successfully used as first feeds; however, they have been used for weaning from live feeds prior to metamorphosis. Striped bass can be grown out in marine (32 ppt) or freshwater (&lt;5 ppt); however, they require high hardness (200+ ppm) and some salinity (8–10 ppt) to offset handling stress. Juveniles must be 1–10 g/fish prior to stocking into marine water. Commercially available fingerling, growout, and broodstock feeds are available from several vendors. Striped bass may reach 1.36 kg/fish in recirculating aquaculture by 18 months and as much as 2.27 kg/fish by 24 months. Farm gate value of striped bass has not been determined, although seasonally available wild‐harvested striped bass are valued at about US $6.50 to US $10.14 per kg and cultured hybrid striped bass are valued at about US $8.45 to US $9.25 per kg whole; the farm gate value for cultured striped bass may be as much as US $10.00 or more per kg depending on demand and market. The ideal market size is between 1.36 and 2.72 kg/fish, which is considerably larger than the traditional 0.68 to 0.90 kg/fish for the hybrid striped bass market.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes

  Figshare · 2021-01-01

  datasetOpen access

  ASVs tables, taxonomy, metadata

  PublisherDOI

• The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes

  eLife · 2021 · 197 citations

  • Biology
  • Food science
  • Ecology

  Humans have relied on sourdough starter microbial communities to make leavened bread for thousands of years, but only a small fraction of global sourdough biodiversity has been characterized. Working with a community-scientist network of bread bakers, we determined the microbial diversity of 500 sourdough starters from four continents. In sharp contrast with widespread assumptions, we found little evidence for biogeographic patterns in starter communities. Strong co-occurrence patterns observed in situ and recreated in vitro demonstrate that microbial interactions shape sourdough community structure. Variation in dough rise rates and aromas were largely explained by acetic acid bacteria, a mostly overlooked group of sourdough microbes. Our study reveals the extent of microbial diversity in an ancient fermented food across diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds.

  PublisherDOI

• Scenario analysis on the use of rodenticides and sex-biasing gene drives for the removal of invasive house mice on islands

  Biological Invasions · 2020-01-02 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Why Do People Care for Sourdough?

  North Carolina State University Libraries eBooks · 2020-04-23 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Using one family’s story and survey responses from hundreds of Sourdough Project participants, Matthew Booker will speculate about why people carry sourdough cultures with them around the world and down through generations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert R. Dunn

  6 shared

• Steve Rawles

  Agricultural Research Service

  3 shared

• Bartholomew W. Green

  Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center

  3 shared

• Noah Fierer

  3 shared

• Erin A. McKenney

  North Carolina State University

  3 shared

• Kenneth L. Riley

  NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

  3 shared

• S. Adam Fuller

  Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center

  3 shared

• Carl D. Webster

  Aquatic Animal Health Research Laboratory

  3 shared

Education

• PhD, History

  Stanford University

  2005

• Graduate coursework, History

  University of Washington

  1998

• MS, Environmental Studies

  University of Oregon

  1997

• Watershed Masters certificate, Extension

  Washington State University

  1992

• BA, Latin American History

  University of California

  1991

• Undergraduate coursework, History

  University of Delhi

  1989