The Food Systems Research Center is pleased to announce that Tessa Lawler has joined the team as the Project Coordinator for the Sustainability Metrics projects.
Prior to joining ¶¶Òõ̽̽, Tessa studied psychology and classics at Northwestern University, where she was also the principal investigator on multiple grants examining aggression and psychopathic traits in children and adolescents. She moved to Vermont in 2022 and worked on an FDA-funded behavioral health study at ¶¶Òõ̽̽’s Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science. Tessa now aims to pursue her interest in environmental systems and will be starting an M.S. program at ¶¶Òõ̽̽ in Fall 2024 in Complex Systems and Data Science.
What is your favorite thing about working for the Food Systems Research Center?   I haven’t been at the FSRC for very long, but I love that there are so many interesting interdisciplinary research projects happening here—I feel like I’m learning a lot already.
What is your favorite thing about living and working in Vermont?  I really love the quiet and the woods in Vermont. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, where both of those are hard to find.
What is something about you people would be surprised to learn?  I play the baritone saxophone and have since I was in grade school. It’s a beautiful, 20-pound piece of brass that hangs from your neck while you play. It’s the cause of 90% of my back problems.
What TV show, band/artist, podcast, video game, book, and/or anything are you most obsessed with right now? I’ve been really enjoying the Complexity podcast from the Santa Fe Institute. I recently listened to their episode with Andy Dobson on Disease Ecology and Conservation Strategy and have been recommending it widely.