Tulane University

Liat joins her fellow Stone Center cohort after two years in Peace Corps Guatemala where she worked with local farmers and elementary schools to design and implement a regional school meal program based on locally available produce and a traditional Ixil diet. Liat‘€™s academic interest in agricultural development and food systems extends back to her undergraduate years at Tulane when she had the opportunity to travel to both Thailand and India to conduct research on ecofeminist alternatives to industrial and capitalist-informed agricultural development. Liat‘€™s fieldwork led to an award-winning honors thesis and the opportunity to host and introduce Dr. Vandana Shiva, a renowned scholar and activist of food and seed sovereignty, at a Tulane-sponsored community lecture. For her MA thesis project, Liat aspires to continue building on her Food Studies research by conducting ethnographic work with Ixil farmers living in Guatemala and the US. Liat is also a recipient of a Mellon Fellowship in community engaged scholarship and believes strongly in the power of activist scholarship to transform and empower communities.