Meredith T. Niles, PhD

Assistant Professor

Dr. Meredith Niles is an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Vermont and also teaches and advises in the food systems program. She completed her BA in politics with honors in environmental studies at The Catholic University of America, a PhD in Ecology at the University of California at Davis and was a post-doctorate fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Meredith thrives conducting applied research that can help bring together diverse stakeholders- whether on a farm or working with policymakers- to help solve pressing problems facing our world's food system. Meredith’s work focuses on sustainable food security across three areas: 1) Ensuring sustainable food production by working to understand farmer’s adoption of sustainable practices; 2) Food access and security in a changing world, particularly the impact of climate change and COVID-19; and 3) food waste behaviors and policy. Currently she has a number of ongoing research projects related to food systems, health and environment from the perspective of people, behavior and policy.

Prior to her academic career, Meredith worked for the United States Department of State in HIV/AIDS public health and for several non-profit organizations. Meredith is a passionate advocate for open access research to make research more publicly available to maximize the potential of science and its benefits for society. To help realize this goal she currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Public Library of Science (PLOS), one of the world’s largest non-profit scientific publishers.

At UVM, Meredith teaches an undergraduate course in U.S. food policy and politics and a graduate course in Food Systems Science and Policy. Her teaching is grounded in engaged, hands-on methods, especially to understand and participate in the policy process.

Research and/or Creative Works

Meredith has three primary areas of interest related to sustainable food security, which overlap with several current and future research efforts:

Ensuring Sustainable Food Production: Meredith works with farmers and farm organizations to understand why farmers adopt best management and sustainable practices. She has worked in this area since her PhD, and has examined farmer’s adoption of climate adaptation and mitigation practices, water management, nitrogen and manure management, and cover crops.
Food Access and Security in a Changing World: Meredith’s previous and current work examines how climate change will affect food access, especially for low-income populations, women and children. This work includes frequently linking survey data with climate change data to explore how food security and diet diversity have been affected by climate change and extreme events. More recently, Meredith is leading a national effort with researchers at UVM and Johns Hopkins University to examine the food access and food security impacts of COVID-19.
Food Waste Behaviors: Meredith has examined the environmental impact of food waste, and primarily focused on understanding why food is wasted and what behaviors households may pursue to minimize food waste under varying policies.

Research Briefs:

The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on food systems, including food access and security.

Below are three briefs that detail these results:

Brief 1: A General Overview of Coronavirus and Food Access and Security in Vermont
Brief 2: The Impact of Coronavirus on Vermonters Experiencing Food Insecurity
Brief 3: Job Disruption and Loss and Food Access During Coronavirus

Further information on the Food Insecurity and Covid-19 Research

Publications

Hammond-Wagner, C.R. and M.T. Niles. What is fair in groundwater allocation? (2020). Distributive and procedural fairness perceptions of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Journal of Society of Natural Resources. DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2020.1752339
Niles, M.T., Schimanski, L.A., McKiernan, E., Alperin, J.P. Why we publish where we do: Faculty publishing values and their relationship to review, promotion and tenure expectations. PLOS ONE. 15(3): e022891
Niles, M.T. Majority of rural residents compost food waste: Policy and waste management implications for rural regions. (2020). Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 3:123.
Hammond Wagner, C., Roy, E., Niles, M.T. (2019). US county-level agricultural crop production cluster classifications. BMC Research Notes. 12, Article number: 552.
Lubell, M.N. and M.T. Niles. (2019). Climate adaptation: Knowledge capacity building limits. Nature Climate Change. 9: 578-579.
Carranza, M., and M.T. Niles. (2019). Smallholder farmers spend credit primarily on food: gender differences and food security implications in a changing climate. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 3:56. doi:10.3389/fsufs.2019.00056
Niles M.T., Hammond-Wagner, C. The carrot or the stick? (2019). California farmer support of incentive and regulatory groundwater management policies. Environmental Research Communications. 1:4. 045001.
Niles, M.T., Waterhouse, H., Kroopf, S., Parkhurst, R. McClellan, E. (2019). Policy options to streamline the carbon market potential for agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. Climate Policy.
Niles, M.T., Horner, C., Chintala, R., Tricarico, J. (2019). A review of determinants for dairy farmer decision making on manure management strategies in high-income countries. Environmental Research Letters. 14:5.
Niles, M.T., Emery, B.F., Reagan, A., Dodds, P.S., Danforth, C. (2019). Social media usage patterns during natural hazards. PLOS ONE. 14(2): e0210484.
Rudnick, J. Niles, M.T., Lubell, M.N., Cramer, L. (2019). A comparative analysis of governance and leadership in agricultural development policy networks. World Development. 117: 112-126.
Niles, M.T., Weiner, S., Schattman, R., Roesch-McNally, G., Reyes, J. (2019). Seeing isn’t always believing: Crop loss and climate change perceptions among farm advisors. Environmental Research Letters. 14:4.

Awards and Recognition

VT Digger, April 20, 2020. Food Insecurity up in Vermont during pandemic, UVM survey finds.
Vermont Public Radio Vermont Edition (Live Interview), April 26, 2020. Rising food insecurity and hunger relief amid the pandemic.
Vermont Public Radio, January 22, 2020. Vermonters want to keep food waste out of landfills- they just don’t want to pay for it.
The Takeaway (WYNC NPR Studios), September 10, 2019. What is the United States doing about food waste?
New York Times, September 8, 2019. The world wastes tons of food. A grocery happy hour is one answer.
Times Higher Education, July 27, 2019. Academics think, ‘others value journal prestige and metrics, not me’
Seven Days, June 11, 2019. UVM Researchers study benefit of sheep grazing at Shelburne Vineyard.
Seven Days, April 24, 2019. A Consideration of Food Waste: How Much Are You Throwing Away?
WCAX Burlington, February 18, 2019. How serious of a problem is food insecurity at UVM?
Vermont Public Radio Vermont Edition, October 30, 2018. (Live interview). How our food choices can affect climate change.
Newsweek, May 13, 2018. Americans Waste 150,000 Tons of Food Every Day—That's a Pound Per Person.
USA Today, April 19, 2018. Americans waste an astounding amount of food — and healthy eaters are the worst. Story also appeared in at least 40 other outlets via the USA Today Network.
Washington Post, April 18, 2018. The staggering environmental footprint of all the food that we just throw in the trash. Story appeared in at least 20 other sites via the Washington Post newswire

Associations and Affiliations

Board of Directors, Public Library of Science
Board of Directors, Rural Vermont
Associations- Ecological Society of America, Agronomy Soil and Crop Science Societies

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Food Systems Sustainability
Food Policy
Food Security
Farmer Behavior
Social-Ecological Systems

Education

PhD, Ecology, University of California, Davis, 2014
BA, Political Science, Honors in Environmental Studies, The Catholic University of America, 2005

CV

MTNiles_CV.pdf

Contact

Email:

mtniles@uvm.edu

Phone:

802-656-4337

Office Location:

350 MLS Carrigan Wing

Office Hours:

by appointment

Website(s):

Courses Taught

NFS 113: Food Policy and Politics
FS 340: Food Systems, Science and Policy

Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences