BIOGRAPHY
Kristin Reynolds, Ph.D.
Kristin Reynolds is a critical food geographer in New York City. Her scholarship and activism focus on informing the creation of socially just food systems in urban and rural spaces. Her first book Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City, (2016; University of Georgia Press, with co-author N. Cohen), examines the work of people of color and women to create more socially just systems, and the possibilities for scholarship to support such initiatives. (See the project blog here.) She is currently conducting research on the social justice and policy implications of commercial urban agriculture in New York City and Paris; and on heritage grains, agroecology and food sovereignty in rural, Eastern France.
Kristin is Chair of Food Studies at The New School and Yale School of the Environment, teaching at each institution about urban food systems, social justice, urban agriculture, and food policy. She is co-founder, coordinator, and steering committee member of the Food Justice Scholar-Activist/Activist Scholar community of practice, within the Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.. She is an associate research fellow at the European School of Political and Social Sciences in Lille, France.
Kristin has worked with many community-based nonprofit organizations and small-scale farms through her research, teaching, and consulting. These include Brooklyn Grange rooftop farms in Queens and Manhattan; La Finca del Sur in the South Bronx; EcoStation:NY, BK Farmyards, and Hattie Carthan Community Garden in Brooklyn; and Harlem Grown in Manhattan. She has led and collaborated on curriculum design at several institutions of higher education, including for a first-of-its-kind associate in science degree program in Food Studies at Hostos Community College (a part of the City University of New York and located in the South Bronx).
As a part of her support for community-driven change, she leads participatory evaluation processes for food and environmental organizations, including with Farm School NYC; East New York Farms!; and Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York, where she served on the founding Board of Directors of Soul Fire Farm Institute from 2015-2020. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Levitt Foundation since 2014.
Kristin holds a Ph.D. in Geography and M.S. in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis, and bachelor’s degrees in International Soil and Crop Sciences and French Language and Literature from Colorado State University. She has lived and worked on numerous farms in the United States and Europe.
Contact: kristin [at] foodscholarshipjustice [dot] org.
PAST TEAM MEMBERS
Mike Harrington, M.S., worked as a key project assistant. He graduated from The New School's Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy with a M.S. in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management. In 2019 he joined The New School’s Tishman Environment and Design Center as Assistant Director.
Claudia Urdanivia, M.A., started as an intern and then worked as a key project assistant. In 2017 she became a staff member with New York City’s GreenThumb community garden progam.
Eben Fenton, was a project assistant. In 2018 he became a staff member at New York Restoration Project.
Michelle Olivero, worked as a graduate student research assistant. In 2018 she joined New York’s Empire State Development Corporation.
Michaela Doughty, graduate research assistant.
Katherine Nehring, graduate research assistant.
Pauline Zaldonis, graduate research assistant.
Summer Xiu Gong, intern.
Steven McCutcheon-Rubio, graduate research assistant and volunteer.