The Food Systems Research Center is excited to introduce four new postdoctoral research associate hires that will support UVM faculty members studying critical issues in food systems research.
These new associates will support robust and diverse food systems research that addresses four FSRC priorities: resilience to climate shocks; food choices and dietary guidelines, norms and approaches; food policy and governance for regional food systems sustainability and nutritional security; and increasing the availability of productive land while considering local and regional goals.
Stevens Azima: Home and Wild Food Procurement as a Means for Regional Sufficiency, Resilience and Food Security
Dr. Stevens Azima is a postdoctoral research associate in the Niles Research lab where his research will contribute to several core areas of FSRC’s agenda by benchmarking home and wild food procurement practices to assess their contribution to the region’s productive land base and food production goals evaluating their role in supporting food access during climate shocks, and identifying policy strategies that could expand access to HWFP among food-insecure and underserved populations.
Azima earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Université Laval in 2023, with a dissertation on the economic and social impacts of local food systems in Canada. Originally from Haiti, where he studied agronomy, he moved to Canada in 2015 after receiving an Excellence Scholarship through the Canada’s Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program. There, he specialized in agricultural economics and developed a broad interdisciplinary skill set. Read his full bio on the FSRC website.
Ariane de Almeida Rodrigues: Land Use Transitions to Optimize Agricultural Production Across Landscapes
Dr. Ariane de Almeida Rodrigues is a postdoctoral research associate working with Gillian Galford and Brendan Fisher. She studies land use dynamics in both the Cerrado and Vermont. Her goal is to identify key intervention points that can inform sustainable land use policies while also supporting food security. Her expertise includes geoprocessing, ecological modeling, and policy analysis.
Rodrigues is an Environmental Scientist and Remote Sensing Specialist with a background in Law. Her research explores the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of land use and land cover change, with a focus on how these transitions affect ecosystems and local communities in the Brazilian Cerrado and Amazon biomes. Read her full bio on the FSRC website.
Jordan Levinson: Weight Inclusive Nutrition in Educational Settings
Dr. Jordan Levinson will be working with Dr. Lizzy Pope and the Weight-Inclusive Nutrition Research Group team to create and test weight-inclusive nutrition curricula for K-12 schools. She will also be contributing to other weight-inclusive initiatives and academic papers.
Levinson's research interests lie at the intersection of developmental, social, and health psychology, as well as public health. She has primarily focused on the relationship between weight stigma and disordered eating behaviors and cognitions (e.g. purging and body dissatisfaction). She is interested in examining how we can target sources of food and weight stigma to help young people develop healthy relationships with food and positive body image and subsequently improve health and wellbeing. Read her full bio on the FSRC website.
Anisah Madden: The Regional Governance of Food Systems in New England
Dr. Anisah Madden is a postdoctoral research associate working with Dr. Colin Anderson at the Institute for Agroecology and with Dr. Molly Anderson (Middlebury) and Dr. Karen Nordstrom (Food Solutions New England). Madden is leading an interdisciplinary participatory action research project to support regional food governance transformations in the Northeastern US through the principles of agroecology and the right to food.
Madden is a political geographer and solidarity / action researcher working to support transformations to agroecological, equitable, and democratically governed food and agriculture systems across scales. As an activist-scholar, Madden has worked on several interdisciplinary research projects to support grassroots-led capacity building and political engagement in policy advocacy processes. Madden’s research helps to provide a strong evidence base to support transitions to agroecological food systems, equity and democratic decision-making in policy and practice. Read her full bio on the FSRC website.
About the FSRC:
The Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) at the University of Vermont (UVM) funds people and planet centered collaborative research that connects disciplines and communities to answer complex food systems questions.