Master’s in Sustainable Food Systems

Ramon Borges-Mendez teaches graduate courses on food systems, inequality, labor economics, migration, and globalization. A recent 2023 publication, an Op-Ed piece in The Boston Globe asked, “How could we improve the skills and training opportunities of the impoverished Latino workers who pick our crops and prepare our food, especially in my home state of Massachusetts?”

Current Work

Dr. Borges-Mendez is actively engaged with the Nutrition Program for the Worcester Public Schools and serves on the Advisory Board of the Farm to Institution New England network, which focuses on increasing local food sourcing in schools, colleges, and hospitals. He is the co-founder of Fundacion Bucarabon, an initiative to reposition the Francisco Vincenty School as a social and economic hub in the coffee-producing regions of Maricao, Puerto Rico.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Regional Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995
• M.A. in City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988
• B.A. in Social Thought and Political Economy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1985

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Cynthia M. Caron returned to academia in 2012 after nine years working in international development and humanitarian assistance in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Her research and teaching interests focus on land and natural resource governance, asking critical questions about how women and marginalized groups maintain secure access to land for agricultural and livelihood pursuits. Her most recent food-related publication is on the work and lives of agricultural workers in contemporary Sri Lanka. She is on the Board of Directors of the Rome-based Land Portal Foundation.

Current Work

Dr. Caron’s development practice focuses on land access in post-conflict settings, gender and land policy, and climate risk and resilience assessments.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Development Sociology, Cornell University, 2003
• Master of Forest Science, Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 1993
• B.A. in International Development and Social Change and Government, Clark University, 1990

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Jude Fernando focuses his research on post-disaster response and humanitarian assistance in relation to livelihood and governance. He is currently completing a book, Political Economy of NGOs: Modernizing Post-modernity, which examines the controversial social roles of micro-credit NGOs in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, based on his long-term work in those countries in the 1990s.

Current Work

In 2022, Dr. Fernando and Sri Lankan colleagues established the Alfa Children and Youth Training Institute, a non-governmental organization to assist children and youth affected by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. By using an experimental child-centered model to advance the rights of young people, he combines academic research with practical projects to effect positive social change.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Economics, Anthropology, South Asian History, University of Pennsylvania, 1998
• B.A. in Applied Economics, University of Peradeniya, 1986

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Morgan Ruelle is an ethnobotanist who explores how biocultural diversity enables communities to adapt to environmental change. His work focuses on how traditional ecological knowledge related to diverse plants and animals provides options for communities to anticipate and respond to increasing climate variability.

Current Work

In Ethiopia, Dr. Ruelle conducts research and training for Traditional Grain Mixtures Project, a collaboration with the New York Botanical Garden, Cornell University, Addis Ababa University, Wollo University, and the Ethiopian Public Health Institute supported by the Rockefeller Foundation’s Periodic Table of Food Initiative. Their research investigates whether traditional cropping practices involving similar grain species contribute to yield stability, soil health, and nutritional complementarity. Since 2007, he has worked with Elders in the Standing Rock Nation of the Northern Great Plains to advance food sovereignty by increasing access to the diverse plants used in traditional foodways.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Natural Resources, Cornell University, 2015
• M.S. in Natural Resources, Cornell University, 2011
• B.S. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 2001

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Anita Fábos is an anthropologist who has worked and conducted research together with Muslim Arab Sudanese refugees in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Formerly the Director of the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies program at the American University in Cairo, Dr. Fábos integrates teaching, research, and participatory programs that incorporate refugee and forced migrant perspectives into collaborative work with scholars, practitioners, refugee organizations, policy makers, and international organizations.

Current Work

Dr. Fábos and her writing partner, Cathrine Brun, Professor and Director of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University, are working on a book on home and homemaking for people in circumstances of long-term displacement, entitled Constellations of Home. She is also co-principle investigator of the Worcester, MA site for Project MISTY, a six-city initiative that explores the ways that migration interacts with sustainability concerns in destination cities, with an emphasis on the unrecognized benefits that it can bring.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Anthropology, Boston University, 1999
• M.A. in Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1988
• B.A. in Political Science and Music, University of Pennsylvania, 1985

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Ken MacLean holds a joint appointment with the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice and the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He has more than twenty-five years of experience working with NGOs on issues related to human rights violations, conflict-induced displacement, state-sponsored violence, extractive industries, and territorial disputes across South East Asia.

Current Work

Dr. MacLean’s recent book, Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar, explores the many ways in which human rights “facts” are produced rather than found. With Myanmar as his case study, MacLean examines the fact-finding practices of a human rights group, two cross-border humanitarian agencies, an international law clinic, and a global NGO-led campaign. The book compels practitioners and scholars alike to be more transparent about how human rights “fact” production works, why it is important, and when its use should prompt concern. Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar is now short-listed by the International Convention of Asian Scholars (ICAS) for its 2023 Best Book Prize in the Social Sciences.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005
• M.S. in Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2004
• M.A. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1998
• B.A. in Anthropology, Princeton University, 1990

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