Sowing Seeds in the City (PDF)

Elizabeth Hodges Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and the Master of Public Health Program Coordinator at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She also serves as co-chair of the Alaska Food Policy Council (AFPC). Dr. Snyder is trained in environmental health (MPH, Global Environmental Health, Emory University, 2004) and soil and water science (PhD, Soil and Water Science, University of Florida, 2009). Her career began with a focus on environmental contaminant fate and transport, and human and ecological risk assessment, but her research program and teaching agenda has since evolved to address the fields of food security and health impact assessment. She has co-authored several works on food security in Alaska; supervises graduate student projects addressing food access, availability, and utilization; and advocates for strengthened rural and urban food systems. Originally from Florida, Dr. Snyder has adjusted well to the climate of Alaska - successfully raising backyard chickens, utilizing vertical drip irrigation to produce greenhouse tomatoes, growing beautiful peonies, chasing moose out of her raised beds, and instilling in her children a love for Alaska Grown carrots made sugar-sweet in the cold soil.
Kristen McIvor is the director of Harvest Pierce County, a program of the Pierce Conservation District. Their mission is to invest in people to foster and sustain an equitable and healthy community-based food system throughout Pierce County. She is also an adjunct professor at Antioch University Seattle where she teaches classes on food systems. Dr. McIvor got her MS at Antioch in Environment and Community and her PhD at the University of Washington. Her academic work has focused on improving soils in urban areas to support the growing of food, and much of her time is spent working with community groups to do just that. She lives in the drippy Pacific Northwest and loves its mild climate for year-round growing. In her spare time, she gets her hands