My writing examines community health, rural-urban development channels, urban agriculture and sustainable farming and fishing systems. I am particularly interested in narratives around (im)migration and adaptation as they pertain to food and agriculture traditions and culture. My work has appeared in a number of print and online publications including Brooklyn Bread, GlobalPost, Edible Nutmeg, BioCycle, the Huffington Post, Culinate and Brooklyn Exposed, and I contribute regularly to the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC.

I have spent time farming in Massachusetts and New York and have worked with various food, agriculture and anti-poverty organizations in communities across the U.S. as well as in South Africa, Turkey and Brazil.

From February-November of 2009, I was the Capacity Building Coordinator for WhyHunger, a NYC-based organization that works towards ending hunger and poverty through grassroots initiatives. I worked with domestic agriculture projects to help increase their capacity using a number of community-based approaches such as farmers markets, gardening, gleaning programs, model exchanges, mentoring projects and CSAs. While at WHY, I was deeply involved with connecting local groups to trainings and to one another, bringing grassroots representatives to conferences, collecting oral histories around local food and agriculture projects and publicizing the work of innovators around the country. I still work as a consultant for WHY from time to time.

Before moving to Brooklyn, I lived in Western Massachusetts where I was the head farm apprentice at a family owned 3-acre vegetable and livestock operation. In addition, I wrote a weekly column as the restaurant critic for the Valley Advocate, a regional independent publication, and wrote feature travel and food pieces for their sister publication, “Preview”. I also worked part-time as a research assistant for Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), helping to compile research and conduct interviews for a W.K. Kellogg Foundation planning grant entitled “Good Food for All in Southern New England”.

I graduated from Tufts University with a BA in history and community health. During my undergraduate career, I spent a term abroad in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, focusing on sustainable agriculture, hunger relief, breastfeeding education, health promotion, the intersection of environment and health, community-based initiatives, and integrative nutrition.

I speak Brazilian Portuguese, read French and can survive, if I have to, in Spanish.

I am currently based in Brooklyn, NY, where I bake pie part-time, bike, interview, wander, garden, eat and cook. I am (sometimes) at work on a memoir.