As a graduate student at Cornell University, I had the opportunity to volunteer with multiple BIPOC-led community organizations around the Ithaca area, instilling in me a dedication to community engagement, outreach, and collaboration. Below is a bit about my previous extension and outreach work as well as some current projects of mine.

Community gardening and climate education: In the summer of 2021, I had the opportunity to co-facilitate a community gardening and climate education summer camp with Black Hands Universal in Ithaca’s West Village. It was through this experience that I developed a strong interest in urban agriculture and collaborative community programming.

Extension-based research with Cornell Cooperative Extension: Working with colleagues at Cornell Cooperative Extension, I completed two extension-based research projects with growers and urban agriculture organizations in New York City. In one project, we tested the potential for excavated clean sediment from the New York City Clean Soil Bank to serve as a viable urban agricultural growth media when mixed with municipal composts. In another, we performed a nine farm survey to examine long-term organic matter dynamics and microbial diversity in urban farming.

Collaborative research with urban agriculture organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area: Motivated by my previous work, I am currently collaborating with urban agriculture practitioners in the San Francisco Bay Area to examine how a variety of organic amendments can support aspects of soil health. We are also co-developing a series of urban grower workshops and developing online resources to disseminate findings from our research and soil health information more broadly to communities throughout the region.