UC Irvine’s Global Sustainability Resource Center hosted an open house Tuesday (Jan. 27), highlighted by presentations from the campus's five student groups that were awarded UC Global Food Initiative student fellowships.
With funding support from the Global Food Initiative, the UCI Sustainability Initiative and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, fellowship projects are receiving $2,500 each to fund research and related projects that focus on food issues, addressing such subjects as community gardens, food pantries, urban agriculture and food waste.
Hosted by Abigail Reyes, director of the UCI Sustainability Initiative, each group offered details about their projects to an attentive assembly of faculty, staff and students.
- Victoria Lowerson Bredow, a graduate student in planning, policy & design, spoke about her effort to build a more sustainable and equitable food system in Orange County.
- Sally Geislar, also a graduate student in planning, policy & design, described the push to preserve and increase the synergy between the UC Irvine community and the former University Center farmers’ market, which recently relocated to nearby Mariners Church.
- Crystal Hickerson, a Ph.D. student in comparative literature, discussed her “grow your own food” program on campus.
- Alexander Fung, a senior business major, who will team with fellow UC Irvine undergraduates Jennifer Lima and Jessica Figueroa, addressed the establishment of a food pantry on campus.
- Ankita Raturi, a graduate student in informatics, detailed her development of a program modeling the environmental impact of agricultural systems.
In addition, history professor Yong Chen, author of "Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America," provided an update on a proposed food studies program that will offer undergraduate and graduate degrees.
The UCI Sustainability Initiative supports interdisciplinary scholarship on the critical climate, environment and resource issues confronting society. As part of the initiative, the Global Sustainability Resource Center is creating a campus culture of sustainability in which environmental, social and economic equity considerations inform our academic pursuit and ways of life. The center supports graduate and undergraduate learning, leadership and innovation through programs in education, career development and community building.
UC President Janet Napolitano, together with UC's 10 chancellors, launched the Global Food Initiative last July to align UC’s research, outreach and operations in a sustained effort to develop, demonstrate and export solutions — throughout California, the U.S. and the world — for food security, health and sustainability. As part of the initiative, 54 UC students were awarded GFI fellowships.
