Teresa Mares is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont and is the Director for the Graduate Program in Food Systems. She received her M.A. (2005) and Ph.D. (2010) in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington. She also completed a graduate certificate in Women Studies at the University of Washington.

Dr. Mares’ research focuses on the labor in the food system, food security and food sovereignty, and migration from Latin America. Analytically, Dr. Mares engages with theories and concepts of citizenship and borders, identity and foodways, and contemporary social movements. Her first book Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont was published by University of California Press (2019). She is currently working on her second book (with co-author Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern) entitled Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food System, under advance contract with University of California Press.

In addition to her book listed above, recent publications include: “Food is a Gift from the Earth: Food Sovereignty Among Migrant Farmworkers in Rural Vermont,” (co-written with Jessie Mazar) in Food Insecurity: A Matter of Justice, Sovereignty, and Survival eds. Tamar Mayar and Molly D. Anderson (London: Routledge Press: 2020); “Using Chiles and Comics to Address the Physical and Emotional Wellbeing of Farmworkers in Vermont’s Borderlands,” (co-written with Naomi Wolcott-MacCausland, Julia Doucet, Andy Kolovos, and Marek Bennett in Agriculture and Human Values 37.1 (2020); and “Health By Mail: Mail Order Medication Practices of Latinx Dairy Worker Households on the Northern U.S. Border ,” (co-written with Naomi Wolcott-MacCausland, and Daniel Baker in Agriculture and Human Values 37.1 (2020).