Food and the Future Environment

Since she can remember, Heather Karsten's favorite color has been green. A native of the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA, Heather's interest in plants and nature was nurtured through lots of outdoor recreational activities, gardening with her mother, and spending time on the farm of family friends. Due to her keen interest in plants and the environmental sciences, she studied Environmental Biology at Yale, where she discovered the field of Agroecology.

As an indication of the twists and turns that can lead one to contemplate food systems, I pursued physics in my undergraduate program at Cornell University, and then, through a series of volunteer and teaching experiences with rural development organizations in the developing world, I attended graduate school first in Horticulture for an MS and then a PhD in soil science. I've conducted basic research on the processes that allow soils to feed plants and supply food systems, but much of my work has been on understanding agriculture at an applied level and in the way it contributes to global food systems, from case studies of organic farms in the Northeast United States, to collaborations with nutritionists in studying Bolivian smallholder farming households.