Gabriella Hall is an undergraduate student at the University at Buffalo. She is currently pursuing degrees in Communication and Sociology with a certificate in Journalism. Gabriella joined the UB Food Lab while finishing up her senior year in high school in the spring of 2018 and has been a researcher since. Gabriella’s work aims to empower marginalized communities of color through research focused on addressing the cyclical nature of food injustice in local and national communities. Gabriella has conducted research on injustices experienced by African American farmers in the U.S. South as part of a series of written pieces and documented the capacity of community food organizations in Western New York. With her team, Gabriella also won the Innovation Award during the 2018 Global Innovation Challenge, a multi-disciplinary student competition designed to address food equity challenges in the Global South.

Most recently, Gabriella has co-authored a book chapter titled “Ethical Lessons from Yesteryear” (in review) about the historical underpinnings of community-led justice efforts in Black Buffalo to be in memory of the late food systems scholar and advocate, Jerry Kaufman. In addition, Gabriella was recently awarded the 2019 Carl R. Allen Memorial Scholarship through the Buffalo Association of Black Journalists for her commitment to journalism and Buffalo’s black community.  In the lab, Gabriella is the lead for project Levers for Change in which youth-centered community food organizations are evaluated and documented to learn of the ways local food leaders are empowering and educating Buffalo’s youth.