Academic Background
Ph D, Agriculture, Food, and Environment, Tufts University
MS, Communications, Syracuse University
BA, Wellesley College
I teach environmental policy, government, advocacy, communication, and food systems courses and am program coordinator for Unity’s Environmental Policy, Law, and Society major. My research and writing focus on local food enterprises in Maine and elsewhere.
As advisor to the Constructive Activists Club and as a teacher, I enjoy working with students in and out of the classroom on policy research and environmental advocacy (pdf). We have taken on projects that range from elimination of toxic food packaging to improved community recycling, from campus food production to defeating attempts to weaken Maine’s environmental laws. In 2009, I won the Maine Campus Compact Harward Award for community and public service through innovative teaching, community partnership, and research.
Academics is my third career. I worked previously in government as Deputy Commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation and in the nonprofit sector as Executive Director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. I serve on several nonprofit boards and committees, including the steering committee of the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine and the advisory board of the The Carrot Project.
My home is an old farmhouse on the Kennebec River, where we grow and prepare much of the food we eat. I feel at home on water, too, from ice out to hard frost, and have swum in, and paddled on, most of the rivers in Maine as well as many lakes and ocean beaches.
