Two Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability Senior Sustainability Scientists, Jesse Senko and Ira Bennett, brought a group of students to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico for a class they are teaching called “Sea Turtles, Sharks and Fisheries of Baja California: Emerging Topics in Marine Conservation."

This Global Intensive Experience, organized by the ASU Study Abroad Office, was one of 15 spring break programs across 12 different countries. These 20 students were part of the 230+ students participating in a study abroad program during ASU’s 2019 spring break.

Continue Reading

The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Chuan Liao, assistant professor in the School of Sustainability.

Continue Reading

Interview by Kayla Frost

Alice Waters — who will deliver a free, public Wrigley Lecture on March 27 — is a world-famous chef who founded and owns the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Waters has written 16 books, including two New York Times bestsellers “The Art of Simple Food I & II” and, most recently, a critically acclaimed memoir “Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook.” Waters also founded the Edible Schoolyard Project with the goal of establishing teaching gardens in schools and connecting them with sustainable food curriculum (“edible education”) for pre-kindergarten through high school students.

In anticipation for her Wrigley Lecture, titled “We Are What We Eat: Teaching Slow Food Values in a Fast Food Culture,” we asked Waters a few questions including how food can be a conduit for solving major issues in society and what advice she has for anybody who wants to discover the joy of seasonal, local, delicious food. Read the interview below, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Continue Reading

Senior Sustainability Scientist Joshua Abbott is a principal author of a new opinion paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Governing the recreational dimension of global fisheries.” Abbott is an associate professor in Arizona State University's School of Sustainability and an affiliated faculty in the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.

The paper discusses the importance of recreational fisheries and the need to improve their management and their inclusion in fisheries policymaking. “Recreational fisheries deserve to be considered on equal footing with commercial fisheries, particularly in mixed coastal fisheries,” the authors argue.

Continue Reading

A new article on ASU Now, "ASU students developing off-grid tech to help small farms build resilience to climate change," tells the story of how five Arizona State University computer science seniors found themselves tackling issues of climate change and sustainable food systems. As part of a capstone project called SolarSENSE, these students are using SolarSPELL off-grid technology to make agricultural sensors more affordable and accessible for small, rural farms around the world. SolarSPELL, Solar-Powered Educational Learning Libraries, is a project directed by Senior Sustainability Scientist Laura Hosman.

Continue Reading

A panel at the Future of Humane Technology event Thursday at the Barrett and O’Connor Washington Center in Washington, D.C. explored the power of narratives to shape what we do with climate change. Two Arizona State University faculty associated with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability contributed to the discussion: Distinguished Sustainability Scholar Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Regents’ Professor and director of Jewish studies at ASU; and Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Gary Dirks, director of the ASU Wrigley Institute.

Continue Reading

Rare opportunity to lead the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations' efforts in this important area. FAO is encouraging individuals to apply who have experience with IPM, transboundary pests (not just locusts!), strategic thinking and team management. The application deadline has been extended to March 31st.

Please see the job posting for Senior Agricultural Officer (Team Leader) P-5.

Continue Reading

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcome Deputy Director Beth Polidoro and her team recently took part in a study investigating the health implications of eating fish from stock ponds around Phoenix.

According to their research, they found fish containing contaminants such as pesticides, chemicals, arsenic, aluminum and mercury exceeding levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Continue Reading

This post was written by Marion Le Gall, a postdoctoral researcher in Arizona State University's Cease Lab.

Last summer, with Master of Science in sustainability student Mira Word having brilliantly defended her thesis and Arianne Cease in writing jail, I (Marion Le Gall) found myself the sole member of the Arizona State University Senegal field team. With that in mind, I decided that the reasonable thing to do was to craft not one, but two field seasons for myself.

At the end of July, I thus packed the material I needed and took the long flight to Senegal. What didn’t take long was being reacquainted with the local rhythm. By that I mean that five hours before landing I still didn’t know where and who my Airbnb host was… Not to worry, in a country that prizes itself for its sense of hospitality, the famous Senegalese “teranga,” everything always seems to work out.

Continue Reading

The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Julia (Chrissie) Bausch, postdoctoral scholar with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

Continue Reading

The vegan smorgasbord on Aly Stoffo’s plate might be overwhelming for anyone else, but that is exactly what she’s cooking up. The food feast in her academic oven is a plant-based food event called: Eat Well Live Well. It’s a project she undertook for her Master of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) culminating experience in partnership with Aramark — ASU’s primary food vendor and high-visibility supporter of university sustainability initiatives.

Continue Reading

Sparking new ideas is the goal of the new Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems research grant program. Ten grants of up to $5,000 each will be awarded to Arizona State University faculty-led research teams proposing interdisciplinary food systems work. Yes, this is a “mini-grant" program so the award will likely fall far short of covering the full costs of your research — but we hope that these resources can help catalyze new work and, in some cases, assist ASU faculty in completing the “pre-work” necessary to pursue larger grant opportunities.

Continue Reading

The ASU-Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is excited to announce its spring 2019 call for grant proposals.

There are two research foci: (1) Resilience, adaptive evolution and the effects of changing environments on plant, animal and microbial phenotypes, and community and ecosystem functions. (2) Integrating biological data with socio-economic models to sustain biodiversity during climate change and human development.

Continue Reading

Maria Cruz-Torres, a senior sustainability scientist and an associate professor in the School of Transborder Studies, has been documenting a lesser-seen side of Sinaloa’s prized seafood industry — its female shrimp traders — for 20 years. This research project earned her the Victoria Foundation’s Eugene García Outstanding Latina/o Faculty Award last September. Launched in 1969, the Phoenix-based group was the first Latina/o community foundation in the United States and now hosts an award series honoring contributions in academia, civil service and the arts around Arizona.

Continue Reading

Interview by Kayla Frost

If you know anything about Raj Patel, you know he has a lot to say about our food system, capitalism and activism. After Patel delivered a Wrigley Lecture at Arizona State University in November 2018, we asked some follow-up questions over the phone. But before we get to the interview — an introduction.

Patel, a research professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, has written several books including “The Value of Nothing,” a New York Times and international best-seller, and “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.” Patel’s most recent book, which he co-wrote with environmental historian Jason W. Moore, is “A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things.” He’s also a co-host of the food politics podcast “The Secret Ingredient.”

Continue Reading

Senior Sustainability Scientist Nancy Grimm, the Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Ecology in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, was named a 2019 Fellow of the Society of Freshwater Science in honor of her outstanding contributions to stream and watershed science.

According to Grimm's biography on the Society of Freshwater Science fellows site, "Grimm studies urban and stream ecosystems. Initially working on stream nitrogen dynamics, she expanded out and down to riparian and hyporheic zones and then abruptly became an urban ecologist."

Continue Reading

In a new study, distinguished sustainability scientist Stuart Lindsay and his colleagues at Arizona State University explore a surprising property of proteins — one that has only recently come to light. In research appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the group demonstrates electrical conductance through proteins poised between a pair of electrodes.

They further show that such conductance only occurs under highly specific conditions, when the contacts connecting the protein molecules to their electrodes are composed of exactly the molecule the protein has evolved to bind. This provides a recipe for wiring proteins into electrical circuits.

Continue Reading

The ASU Center for Sustainable Tourism of the School of Community Resources and Development and the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes will be hosting a public talk with Dr. Tracy A. Farrell to explore the impact conservation partnerships between NGOs and universities have on achieving positive conservation outcomes.

Farrell is the VP of strategies and fundraising for Conservation Internationa's Asia Pacific Division.

The talk, titled "Collaborative conservation: Weaving universities and non-profits together in the fight to save our planet," is part of the ASU-CI partnership.

Continue Reading

The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.

Read on for an interview with Carol Johnston, associate dean and professor in the College of Health Solutions.

Question: How did you get interested in food systems issues?