Impact
Policy and practice
- Indicators adopted into global monitoring frameworks. Food Systems Countdown Initiative indicators I helped design have been incorporated into the CAADP framework and into FAOSTAT, extending their use well beyond the original research.
- Policy reports with global reach. The Food Systems Countdown Initiative’s annual assessments are released as FAO policy reports with executive summaries in six languages:
- FAO Statistics Working Papers on employment and value added in agrifood systems, informing how national statistical offices and international agencies measure and report on the agrifood workforce. See Estimating global and country-level employment in agrifood systems.
- USDA-funded consumer research on diet quality and food price sensitivity, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and USDA Economic Research Service — see the USDA press release.
Open data and reproducibility
All of my empirical work is released with public replication code and data wherever possible, through GitHub and Harvard Dataverse — see each entry on the Publications page for direct links.
Scholarly recognition
- Sylvia Lane Mentorship Fellowship (2026), Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) — $2,500 to work with mentor Chen Zhen (University of Georgia) on consumer demand for whole grains and legumes using household scanner data
- Invited keynotes & plenary presentations:
- “Interactions across food systems” (Invited Keynote) — UVM Food Systems Summit, University of Vermont, September 2024
- “The state of food systems worldwide” (Invited Keynote) — Paths to Sustainable Food Systems Conference, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Oslo, Norway, April 2024
- “Estimating global and country-level employment in agrifood systems” (Plenary) — 9th International Conference on Agricultural Statistics, Washington, DC, May 2023
- Invited and selected presentations at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) annual meetings, the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) fall conferences, the International Conference of Agricultural Economics (ICAE), the AAAS Forum on Science & Technology Policy, the Tata-Cornell Institute 10th Anniversary Conference, and invited departmental seminars (e.g., Michigan State University)
Funding
- Understanding American consumers’ demand for whole grains and legumes using household scanner data (2026–2027) — part of the Soil to Society project, with Vicki McCracken and Chen Zhen. PI: Kate Schneider Lecy.
- Food Systems Countdown Initiative (2026–2027) — Nourishing Food Pathways sub-award from GAIN. PI: Kate Schneider Lecy.
- Whose diet quality is most at risk when food prices rise? (2023–2025) — Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. PI: Kate Schneider.
- Value added in agrifood systems (2023–2024) — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. PI: Kate Schneider.
- Food Systems Countdown Initiative Bellagio Workshop (April 2023) — Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. Lead applicant and coordinator: Kate Schneider.
- Food Systems Countdown Initiative (2022–2024) — Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs sub-award from GAIN. PI: Kate Schneider.
- Optimizing human health and nutrition: from soil to society (2022–2027) — U.S. Department of Agriculture, sub-award from Washington State University (total award: $10 million). PI: Andrew Thorne-Lyman.
- Food Systems Countdown Report (2021–2022) — Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs sub-award from GAIN. PI: Jessica Fanzo.
- Changing Access to Nutritious Diets in Africa and South Asia (2018–2020) — Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. PI: William Masters.
I have also received the Gerald J. Friedman Fellowship in Nutrition and Citizenship (2016–2020), a Tufts University Provost Fellow Award (2016–2018), and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation High Impact Bonuses (2015 & 2016).
Metrics & mentions
- Google Scholar profile
- ORCID record
- ASU faculty profile
- Altmetric attention scores — track news coverage, policy citations, and social media reach beyond academic citations — for select articles: