The ̽̽ Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) is proud to share a year in review of our FSRC Fellows. These Ph.D. students and candidates are conducting important regional and international food systems. Their research ranges from studying mycorrhizal fungi inoculation to farmer-centered policy and represents the transdisciplinary nature of food systems research.
Vitoria Aparecida Cardoso
Vitoria Aparecida Cardoso is a Ph.D. student in Community Development and Applied Economics and a Gund Institute Graduate Fellow. Her research underscores the importance of context and place-based values in policy design, with a focus on the unique governance structures governing organic farming.
Under the guidance of her advisor Dan Tobin, Vitoria completed the requisite coursework for her Ph.D., gaining valuable insights into the development of sustainable food systems through effective policy design. She attended three conferences, notably the AFSF: Knowing Food Conference at Boston University, which allowed her to connect with scholars exploring organic farming and policy issues, particularly the Farm Bill. Her research, centered on respecting farmers' relational values within policy institutions, aspires to shed light on the diverse motivations guiding farmers' actions and influence policy formation. In the pursuit of her second-year goals, encompassing classwork and proposal development, she presented her theoretical framework at a conference, outlining her approach to integrating farmers' values into macro and meso-level policy discussions for enhanced efficiency. In the coming years, she aims to conduct case studies involving policymakers and farmers to frame her research effectively.
Natalia Aristizábal
Natalia Aristizábal is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and a Gund Institute Graduate Fellow. Her work primarily focuses on the impacts of climate change and forest loss on bees and crop pollination services at both farm and landscape levels. Natalia’s advisor is Taylor Ricketts, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources faculty and Director of the Gund Institute for the Environment.
Natalia spent this year focused on her dissertation and made progress towards her goal of graduating by the end of 2023. She accomplished a pivotal milestone by submitting one of her dissertation chapters for publication in the Journal of Applied Ecology. In October 2022, Natalia attended the National Diversity In STEM Conference (SACNAS) in Puerto Rico where she spoke and received an award for work as ̽̽ SACNAS Chapter President the previous year. This year, Natalia plans to complete the data analysis phase of her FSRC-funded project and finishing writing the final two chapters of her dissertation.
Panagiota Stamatopoulou
Panagiota “Yiota” Stamatopoulou is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering at the Environmental Microbiome Engineering Research Group (EMERG) at ̽̽. The project she has been working on with her advisor, Dr. Matthew Scarborough, focuses on the biological production of medium-chain carboxylic acids from agricultural and food wastes.
With the FSRC funding the past year, Yiota started her lab experiments and is currently analyzing the data with plans to publish results in the next few months. This research endeavors to optimize the process for scalability, potentially leading to the housing of bioreactors at farms in Vermont and worldwide, which could help farmers recycle waste, generate high-value chemicals, boost their income, and address waste management challenges.
Ayana Curran-Howes
Ayana Curran-Howes is a Ph.D. candidate in Food Systems working with Dan Tobin, Assistant Professor of Community Development and Applied Economics. Her research focuses on the importance of relationships in decision making and sustainability outcomes within alternative agricultural spaces, namely, agroecology. Ayana studies how relationships between farmers and their animals impact care, labor dynamics, and design of agroecological farms to highlight values and practices that can enable transitions out of industrial animal agricultural models. She is interested in how these farmers are able to enact values that are contrary to the dominant values of profit and productivity within capitalism and how creative, participatory methods can enable better understanding of these complex systems of human and non-human laborers.
This year Ayana presented at three conferences on her work within the Institute for Agroecology and on her theoretical and methodological frameworks: Great Transitions, Association for the Study of Food and Society, and Rural Sociological Society. She also completed a certificate in landscape design at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Having completed her coursework, she is currently working on writing her first philosophical paper and preparing for field work to take place next year. Ayana hopes that this research can address the deepest leverage points including a cultural shift and rethinking of the current political economic system. Through in-depth case studies, she hopes her research will be able to inform better, more creative policies to support farmers implementing value-based practices.
Jorge Ruiz-Arocho
Jorge Ruiz-Arocho is a Ph.D. student in Plant and Soil Sciences under the advisement of Yolanda Chen. He is examining how the cultivation of domesticated crops has influenced higher trophic levels. Specifically, his dissertation research focuses on studying the arthropod species that coevolved with crops wild relatives prior to agriculture and whether service-provider organisms (i.e., pollinators and natural enemies) have been lost in the transition into agroecosystems. By increasing the understanding on how the emergence of agriculture shapes arthropods’ capacity to exploit agroecosystems, Jorge is aiming to provide small-holder farmers in North America with novel eco-evolutionary knowledge to improve pest control and conduct sustainable agriculture.
Jorge spent this year analyzing data from his research in Mexico, submitting his thesis, and graduating within the next year.
Sandra Nnadi
Sandra Nnadi is a Ph.D. student in Plant Biology department. Sandra’s research evaluates the effects of mycorrhizal fungi inoculation on the fungal microbiome of blueberry roots and how the interactions between the roots and the microbiome influence floral traits like flower number, bud count and berry traits like anthocyanin content and berry mass. Her research can help farmers determine if it is cost effective for them to invest their money into these natural, commercial inoculants. Sandra is presently analyzing the data. Her advisor is Jeanne Harris in the Department of Plant Biology.
This year Sandra attended four conferences: NOFA-VT, International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, New Moon Mycology Summit (where she gave a teaching presentation), and Fungi Fest (where she gave a seminar presentation). Sandra presented a poster at the NOFA conference and she said “It was exciting to focus on research and have that opportunity to meet with people who are not in the science field but are concerned about sustainability, the environment, and the food the they eat.”
Tung-Lin Liu
Tung-Lin Liu is in his final year as a Ph.D. student in the Food Systems graduate program. His advisor is Christopher Koliba, Professor Emeritus in the Community Development and Applied Economics Department. Tung is a computational social scientist interested in the critical role of biodiversity. His research integrates an array of data sources, including weather, crop production, dietary recalls, and food composition tables. His goal is to estimate and simulate the effect of crop diversity loss on food and nutrition security across spatial scales and countries.
While most of his work is in data science, Tung says, “I think of myself as a food systems researcher because I'm interested not only in the parts of food systems, but also their interactions. I believe in a whole systems perspective to study human and environmental health.” This year, Tung presented the AFSF:Knowing Food Conference at Boston University where he previously earned his graduate certificate in culinary arts and was able to connect with former contacts and meet new researchers. He is currently working on his dissertation and is looking forward to a job search where he can apply his research globally.
About Us:
The ̽̽ Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) uncovers solutions to pressing issues through the lens of food and farming. As pioneers in USDA-funded research, we’re at the forefront of discovering how what’s on our plate affects our society and the planet. Follow us on and .