Details

The team at Illinois Tech is collaborating with community, industry and academic stakeholders in Chicago and beyond, in research and co-design for developing circular innovations for wasted food, articulating the multiple types of value advanced through collaborative approaches in wasted food management, and facilitating partnerships for adopting and scaling such solutions.

I am currently recruiting a student to join our research team at the Institute of Design's doctoral program in Design.

Details

We work with the Chicago Food Policy Action Council (CFPAC), the Midwest Consortium for Equity, Research and Food Policy (M-CERF) and a network of farmers, food producers and community entrepreneurs and organizations to understand sustainability and equity issues in individual organizations and the larger Chicagoland food system. We work with these partners to co-create strategies for improving sustainability and equity outcomes in the food system, particularly addressing opportunities for increasing food accessibility and entrepreneurship in Black and Brown communities.

We are currently analyzing patterns and opportunities around "Food Hubs" that work collaboratively with groups of farmers, to connect them to consumers and institutional buyers, while providing a suite of support services to them.

Details

Our current economic systems create tremendous impacts on the environment, and unequal burdens on different human communities. Industrial Ecology is an interdisciplinary field aimed at analyzing the relationships between humans, our industrial activities and the environment, through tools such a material and energy flow analysis, life cycle assessment and environmental input-output modeling. It is premised on the idea of nature as a metaphor for the sustainable organization and operation of industry. The Circular Economy envisions an economic system in which resources are utilized efficiently and capital is regenerated,so that human activities operate within the limits of nature. We are developing theories, tools and interventions at the intersection of science, design and management for transitioning to sustainable systems. This includes work on industrial symbiosis, or inter-organizational collaborations to effectively manage energy, water, material and waste resources, business models for the circular economy, and incorporating justice and equity into new regenerative economic activities.