Dr. Samina Raja is the Principal Investigator of the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
Her research, teaching, and civic engagement focuses on the role of community-led local government planning and policy in building equitable, sustainable, and healthy communities. Her current projects focus on using the food system as a lever and space for promoting food and health equity.
Her research is published in leading planning and health journals. She is the lead author of the Planners Guide to Community and Regional Food Planning: Transforming Food Environments, Building Healthy Communities, one of the earliest guidance reports on food systems planning published by the national American Planning Association. For additional publications, please visit the publications page.
Micaela F. Lipman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo. Lipman’s work draws on queer crip and anti-adultist theoretical frameworks to (re)imagine systems of inclusion/exclusion within urban and regional planning, and more specifically within food system planning. Lipman views food as connective tissue across communities and uses the food system as a lens through which to examine equity. As a disabled scholar, Lipman is especially interested in unraveling how chronic illness is experienced via food system entanglements. Lipman enjoys teaching at the University at Buffalo and unpacking the ethics of engaging with local communities in planning studies. Lipman has worked in academia and the nonprofit sector for over ten years exploring creative solutions at the nexus of adolescent development, food policy, disability justice, and community engagement. Prior to the University at Buffalo, Lipman graduated from Cornell University with a BA in Development Sociology with minors in International Development and Applied Economics.
Dr. Alexandra Judelsohn pursues community-based research at the intersection of urban planning, public health, and environmental studies, centering the voices of community members. Her interests are around how cities facing austerity urbanism market themselves to potential residents, and her current research examines the role of refugee-led community organizations in U.S. refugee resettlement and the gaps these organizations fill in delivering services.