We’ve Moved!

Food Systems Lab has moved across the country! Our Director of Research and Co-Founder, Dr. Tammara Soma, has joined the School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM) at Simon Fraser University as an Assistant Professor. Over the next year, we will continue our research work in Toronto on food waste reduction and awareness campaigns while planting seeds to start up Food Systems Lab in British Columbia.

News release from Simon Fraser University:

The School of Resource and Environmental Management (REM) is pleased to announce that Dr. Tammara Soma will be joining REM on December 1, 2018 as Assistant Professor in Planning. Dr. Soma holds a Ph.D. in Planning (2018) from the University of Toronto. She is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, a Research Fellow at the University of Guelph, the Co-founder / Director of Research at the Food Systems Lab (a Canadian Social Innovation and Research Lab) and is leading the Food Equity Initiative as a Lecturer with the Department of Equity Studies at New College’s New One Program (University of Toronto). She has published her work in the journals Local EnvironmentBuilt EnvironmentIndonesia (forthcoming), Journal of Agriculture, Food System and Community Development, and in the books Conversations in Food Studies (University of Manitoba Press), and Learning, Food and Sustainability (Palgrave McMillan). She is a co-editor with C. Reynolds, J. Lazell, and C. Spring of the upcoming Routledge Handbook on Food Waste. Beyond academic publications she also writes for the Huffington Post, Policy Options, Alternatives Journal, and is frequently interviewed by media such as the Toronto StarGlobe and Mail, CBCTVO The Agenda and more. Her current research projects are funded by the Weston Foundation “Seeding Food Innovation” grant and she is leading a tri-country team (U.S, Mexico and Canada) on a Commission for Environmental Cooperation project to develop toolkits for youth engagement in food loss and food waste reduction. She is a 2014 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Doctoral Scholar, a Joseph Armand Bombardier SSHRC CGS Doctoral Fellow, an International Development Research Centre Doctoral Award recipient, and a SSHRC Top 5 Storyteller finalist.

Dr. Soma’s area of research complements REM’s interdisciplinary approach to resource management, and she will bring SFU and REM, new courses and expertise in food systems planning, food waste, waste management, and social justice implications within each of these areas.  In Spring 2019, Dr. Soma will be teaching her first course at SFU, REM 363 Special Topics:  Building Sustainable Food Systems. Stay tuned for more information later in the Fall 2018 semester!