Dr. Brandy E. Phipps will share about one of her current projects - the SUSHI project - a $10 million USDA Sustainable Agriculture Systems project focused on the following goals: a) investigating methods to decrease the cost and environmental impact of nutrient-dense food production; b) increasing domestic markets for hemp grain and aquaculture to positively impact environmental footprint and equity/access issues within food production in the US; c) contributing to the diversity of the agriculture workforce; and d) supporting the food sovereignty and public health efforts of a low-resourced minority community. Work from this project is expected to serve as a model for transdisciplinary and integrated agriculture and food systems work and to show how to approach future partnerships between academia (and other high-resourced) entities to form authentic, respectful, and meaningful relationships with the communities in which they reside and serve.
Dr. Phipps received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is an Assistant Professor with a research focus on a) the intersection of climate change, nutrition/health equity, and food systems transformation; and b) holistic interactions of biomolecules in plant extracts and foods and the mechanisms of biomolecules in the prevention/alleviation of disease. Dr. Phipps is Project Director on a $10 M USDA-funded project and Co-Pi on $1.5 M in additional USDA- and FDA-funded projects. She has 20+ years of higher education teaching experience in the Biological and Life Sciences, and currently teaches Anatomy and Physiology, Nutrition, and Undergraduate Research classes. She is particularly passionate about providing educational equity, advanced experiential STEM learning opportunities, and personalized mentoring to PEER students and those who have been socially and economically disadvantaged.