Ana is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Systems Thinking for Obesity Prevention (STOP) lab in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. She received her MS in Nutrition at CSU in 2018 and is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. Her master’s thesis investigated the use of community-based participatory research among youth to promote food access in a low-income neighborhood. Ana’s current research focuses on food insecurity, primarily among households above poverty in high cost-of-living regions. Ana is enthusiastic about building food environments that make nutritious foods accessible for all. As a dietitian, Ana works with clients to promote a positive relationship with food and use it as fuel for daily activities and chronic disease prevention. She enjoys spending time outside for all 300 days of Colorado sunshine, cooking, and hanging out with her dogs.

I’m a first-year master’s student in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at CSU. I’m originally from Santa Maria, California which is known for its strawberry growing operations and an indigenous farm labor force. My parents are originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and have been working as strawberry harvesters in Santa Maria, which is where I got my start in agriculture. My current research interests lie in farm labor, farmworker welfare and human capital. My research interests explore the determinants of socioeconomic mobility among farm laborers and how economic developments among the farm labor force continue to affect the agriculture sector. Additionally, I’m interested in identifying the educational, career, and economic outcomes of U.S. farmworker families.

Jenna is passionate about building a more sustainable and just food system. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Science from Cornell University, where she also spent a semester studying food security in Ecuador, Malawi, and Italy. After graduating, Jenna spent a year and a half working as a nutritionist at an HIV resource center in Boston. Moving forward, she is interested in exploring the role that nutrition/diet can play in supporting a sustainable food system, specifically in the restaurant industry. Jenna also enjoys trail running in the Colorado mountain ranges and races for the local women’s team, Front Range Elite. Outside of running she likes leisure reading with a good cup of coffee.

Broadly speaking, I’m a political economist and mixed-methods social scientist with a particular interest in data visualization, GIS, and agent-based modeling. My Master’s thesis focuses on homelessness in Fort Collins, examining the intersection of stigma, public policy, and homeless services. Though I’ve yet to finalize my dissertation topic, my PhD research will focus on the political economy of local food systems, likely as it relates to sustainability and/or barriers to food access.

Becca is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at CSU. She also got her M.A. at CSU in Sociology. During her undergraduate degree, Becca worked at a non-profit farm in Seattle, WA that partnered with the county to provide horticulture training as an alternative to incarceration. Following this experience, Becca’s work has focused on food systems and carceral systems, as well as discourse and social movements. Through these foci, she has studied migrant farmworker labor organizing and hunger strikes in immigrant detention. Currently she is a part of a research lab conducting a nation-wide study on horticulture and agriculture programs in prisons. She is also collaborating with Dr. Josh Sbicca in the Department of Sociology on a study of news coverage of hunger strikes in prisons.

Tabitha is passionate about resilient food systems and ecosystems and is working on an irrigated cropping systems resource that links the two. Her project includes the creation of an inventory of the most recent crops and crop rotations grown throughout the different regions of Colorado, a quantification of the water footprint of the most water intensive crops, and then the integration of the inventory and crop water footprints with existing databased towards the development of a predictive modeling tool to visualize water consumption changes with changes in crop choices in the different regions. Tabitha has worked in food systems in various respects over the years, from berry picker, goat herder, compost manager, and farmer’s market vendor, to catalog manager at a food distribution company, and now creator of Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule education and outreach materials. Her extracurricular interests include spending time with her family, cooking, gardening, traveling, and community building. She plans to find her place amongst the web of possibilities within food system or natural resource management when she graduates.

Chelsea has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from UC San Diego and a Master’s degree in Biology from Seoul National University. She is adopting a translational, interdisciplinary approach for her PhD research on beans, using laboratory work to answer key questions that will inform the development of outreach materials. She thinks it is critical to integrate dissemination into research plans, and she is preparing for a career with Extension. Chelsea also helps coordinate the Food Systems webinars.

Mackenzie Gill’s primary research focuses are in agricultural marketing and consumer choice. At the University of Tennessee, her M.S. thesis investigated consumer preferences for eco-friendly attributes in single-use disposables. Going forward, she is interested in exploring the intersection of consumer choice and regional food system growth. Her long-term career objective is to investigate economic opportunities from which struggling communities and firms in developing industries can benefit. She’s so grateful to be a part of the CSU Food Systems team!

Regan’s research interests lie in the broad scope of sustainable agriculture and food systems. Within this area, she enjoys studying local and organic markets, consumer behavior, food access and security, and sustainable consumption and production. As an undergraduate, she researched the U.S. market implications of a CO2-equivalent tax on meat consumption and statistically analyzed producer adoption of conservation practices in conventional Nebraska and Iowa agriculture. Regan also served as president of UNL’s Student Organic Farm and has worked with Nebraska Extension and local farms. She’s thrilled to be a part of this team working to improve our food systems for all.

My research interests are food-energy-water (FEW) nexus and its climate change implication with special focus on Bangladesh. My interest in food system comes from my MA thesis where I examined how the underlying connection between climate change and household characteristics influence women’s nutritional status in Bangladesh. Whenever we talk about human nutrition,
we need to talk about food. This is because we eat food, not nutrition. This interest grew up in the last summer when I worked with Dr. Joshua Sbicca in his “Food Justice Frontiers and the Greening of Prisons with Horticultural Initiatives” project. The project is funded by the School of Global Environmental Sustainability Residential Fellowship at Colorado State University. Along with my PhD study in sociology, I am also enrolled in National Research Training program at Interdisciplinary Teaching, Education and Research in Food-Energy-Water Systems
(InTERFEWS), Colorado State University. It is NSF funded four years long interdisciplinary
training program for graduate students from different discipline where I will have rigorous
training on Food-Energy-Water nexus. For my PhD, I am looking forward to doing research on
climate change implications (availability of water and energy) of food production in Bangladesh.

Azmal’s research interest is the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus and its climate change implications. As a national research trainee of InTERFEWS at CSU, he is particularly interested in how climate change affects food security amidst the growing scarcity of irrigation water in the Global South. His interest in food security comes from his MA thesis where he examined how the underlying connections between climate change and household characteristics influence women’s nutritional status in Bangladesh. Currently Azmal is engaged with different multidisciplinary research groups covering food justice in the US prison system, implications of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) for Colorado’s food system, the COVID-19 pandemic and food security, climate change resilience of indigenous, rural and vulnerable communities in the South-central region of the USA, and climate gentrification and socio-environmental justice.

Alyssa is a Graduate Research Assistant for the Food Systems Institute working on the Farm to School project. She got her Master’s at the Université de Lille 1 in France in Management of European Affairs and Politics, with a focus on environmental economics. Her BA was in Sociology and Business Administration at Chico State University, California. Alyssa’s focus throughout her Ph.D. will be on the Food, Energy, Water Nexus (FEW), with an interest in the socio-environmental impact of intensive water usage and water governance in various industries (brewing and lithium extraction, for example). Alyssa worked in Bolivia with an NGO advocating for children in prison (due to their parents being imprisoned, mostly as a mule for drug traffickers) and their lack of resources (especially access to nutritious food, water, hygiene and education).

Following his Master’s in Development Economics and work experience in rural agricultural development in India, Pratyoosh is motivated to work towards small-farm and rural agricultural development, supporting policies and programs, and in understanding the regional economics of the same. His Ph.D. work will focus on the impact of Farm to School legislation on farmers, supply chain businesses, rural communities, and the economics of the policy changes. Prior to starting his Ph.D. at CSU, Pratyoosh focused on the development of community-based livestock farming and marketing with small, marginal, and landless women farmers in India, agricultural extension, and value chain development. He is looking to substantiate his learning from a developing country context with a developed country context in rural development. In Pratyoosh’s free time he is also a photographer and he feels that visuals can strongly complement research findings.

Beth is a PhD candidate in Animal Science – Beef Systems Management where her research has focused on mitigating financial stress for beef operators in Colorado using benchmarking tactics and Systems Dynamics methodology that investigate various drought strategies. Beth obtained an MS in Animal Science – Breeding and Genetics at Colorado State University while working at the USDA-National Animal Germplasm Program. She is very passionate about the beef industry and the people working in it – a reflection of her upbringing on a registered Angus and commercial cattle operation in Kansas. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and toddler, and visiting the farm back home when time allows.

India Luxton is currently a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University. India graduated from Western New England University in 2015 with her bachelor’s degree in Sociology. She received her Master’s degree from Colorado State University in 2017. Broadly, India is interested in community-based research with an emphasis on social change, the environment, and industrialized animal agriculture. India’s dissertation will examine COVID-19’s impact on industrialized animal agriculture, with a focus on emergent policies, regulatory decisions, and outcomes. India’s published works include “Collaborative Concession in Food Movement Networks: The Uneven Relations of Resource Mobilization,” an article that examines how organizations navigate differences in power and influence through resource exchange, and “Mapping Movements: A Call for Qualitative Social Network Analysis,” a methodological article that highlights the advantages of qualitative social network analysis in food system and social movement research.

Peter Olayemi is a PhD student in the Soil and Crop Sciences Department whose goal is to elucidate specific characteristics of the soil microbiome that support farmer-centric outcomes associated with soil health. Coming from Nigeria, he sees a big opportunity in utilizing research to help feed the world’s rapidly increasing population through sustainable agriculture. His current projects include exploring the soil health benefits of a novel soil amendment from cheese production and evaluating the long term impacts of no-tillage and residue retention on soil health indicators through agronomic trials on wheat and corn.

Currently, Hailey is researching worker perspectives in livestock operations in order to better working environments, training methods, and animal welfare. While she doesn’t have a farming background, she received her bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from Iowa State University, where she engaged in community agriculture outreach and worked at 4-H events in the area. Previously, Hailey spent time teaching children about livestock handling and animal agriculture systems across the US. At CSU she is assisting on a variety of projects in the Department of Animal Sciences, ranging from equine behavior to animal handling. She is very excited to reach out to communities to help them grow fresh produce and raise livestock in order to attain a nutritious and balanced food supply.

Rebecca Wasserman-Olin is a first year PhD student in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics. She received her B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed her M.S. at Cornell University where she investigated consumer purchasing habits of local produce. In between her studies, she worked as a community organizer and economic researcher in Minnesota helping farmers assess the economic impact of incorporating conservation practices into their crop rotations. She also worked as a researcher at Cornell University supporting regional food systems in New York State. Throughout her career she has worked on vegetable farms ranging from 1 to 25 acres and she finds herself happiest in a pack shed. She looks forward to learning about agricultural systems in Colorado and supporting the great work of the Food Systems Institute.

Annika Weber is a Food Science and Human Nutrition PhD student. In her PhD, she is applying her experience in nutrition and biochemistry to research on the host associated microbiota-metabolic responses to nutrient dense foods and associated health outcomes, while also applying a broader lens at the food-energy-water nexus. Annika hopes to apply her doctoral research to an international public health agency where can continue working to find integrative food solutions to promote nutrition and health across the lifespan.

As a Masters of Political Science candidate, Eddie’s thesis tracks the coevolution of agri-food (large and small scale) with the diets, health, and overall lifestyles of not just consumers, but individuals in the production of food also. By focusing on the historic, political economy of food industries, insight into its relationship with our broader society can be drawn. He received a bachelor’s degree in history and in political science from Colorado State University in 2017 and is a Colorado native.

Yue is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology, who concentrates on rural sociology, development, food industry clusters, and East Asian studies.

I have been working on consumer demand and behavior since 2011. My previous research focused on consumers’ perceptions and willingness to pay on organic and conventional fruits under experimental auction setting in various food retail outlets. My current research interests includes consumer demand, implicit price dispersion, food safety, food consumption and nutrition.