WEBSITE Degrees
M.Phil Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies B.S. Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
About
I’m a 4th year doctoral candidate broadly interested in sustainability within the U.S. context. I work at the intersection of food studies and sustainable consumption. I take a systemic approach and mainly focus on the process of transitioning to sustainable forms of food production and consumption. Both my research training and teaching experience bridge the social and natural sciences.
My doctoral committee members are Karen Hébert (chair, Yale), John Wargo (Yale), and Juliet Schor (Boston College). My dissertation explores concrete strategies for reducing the eco-impact of school meals, while simultaneously questioning how the regulatory and cultural influence of the National School Lunch Program could foster sustainability more broadly. My ethnographic and historical research into the transition process of New Haven Public Schools (and other leaders across the country) provides a window onto the challenges of shifting entrenched industrial systems and ingrained consumer habits. Despite being a poor school district in a state with a short growing season, New Haven has become a leader in the national farm-to-school movement. Over the past three years, New Haven Public Schools transitioned from reheating pre-processed meals to cooking meals from scratch with nutritious ingredients, 15% of which are sourced from local farms. My work begins with farm-to-school sourcing, but quickly expands to explore other strategies school foodservice operations might take to foster regional and sustainable food economies. I take three primary points of inquiry: foodservice labor, food system infrastructure, and children’s food culture.
