5 students awarded Global Food Initiative fellowships

Five UC Irvine students have been awarded $2,500 fellowships to fund research and related projects that focus on food issues. They’re among 54 University of California students receiving support from UC President Janet Napolitano’s Global Food Initiative Student Fellowship Program for efforts addressing such subjects as community gardens, food pantries, urban agriculture and food waste. The UCI awardees are: Victoria Lowerson Bredow, a graduate student in planning, policy & design, who will explore how to build a more sustainable and equitable food system in Orange County; Sally Geislar, also a graduate student in planning, policy & design, who will lead a push to preserve and increase the synergy between the UCI community and the farmers market at University Center; Crystal Hickerson, a doctoral student in comparative literature, who will join with Geislar to institute a “grow your own food” program on campus; Alexander Fung, a senior business major, who will team with fellow UCI undergraduates Jennifer Lima and Jessica Figueroa to establish a food pantry at the Student Outreach & Retention Center; and Ankita Raturi, a grad student in informatics, who will work to develop a program modeling the environmental impact of agricultural systems. The Global Food Initiative was launched in July to align the UC’s research, outreach and operations in a sustained effort to develop, demonstrate and export solutions — throughout California, the U.S. and the world — for food security, health and sustainability.