黑料网吃瓜爆料

At first glance, the work being championed by Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, Will Schanbacher and Christian Wells may seem unrelated. 翱鈥橪别补谤测, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, is interested in water politics; Schanbacher, an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, cares deeply about food sovereignty; and Wells, a professor of anthropology, is improving human and environmental health outcomes of redevelopment efforts in underserved communities.

Beyond the fact that the three are faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, they have something else in common: a belief in the transformative power of collaboration.  

鈥淔aculty and students at 黑料网吃瓜爆料have such incredible opportunities to bridge the 鈥榯own and gown鈥� divide by sharing their time, expertise and resources with communities to build capacity for positive change,鈥� said Wells.  

By focusing on collaborative, community research, the trio are making an impact and transforming the way others think about everything from coastal change and water sources to food security.

Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, PhD

Heather 翱鈥橪别补谤测, an assistant professor on the St. Petersburg campus, is reinventing the way we analyze coastal change. Along with her , 翱鈥橪别补谤测 has transformed social, economic and environmental data into music. This university-wide collaboration has broadened the dialogue around coastal change through creativity and innovation.

鈥淚鈥檓 understanding water from a community perspective by partnering with women鈥檚 organizations and informal, illegal settlement communities in Delhi, India, to working with Tampa Bay鈥檚 subsistence fishing communities,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淚 prioritize mutual understanding and active engagement in data collection by transforming our findings into something you can participate in and interact with in a very real way.鈥�

翱鈥橪别补谤测 believes that listening to the impacts of watery disasters on everyday people is an essential aspect of data collection. Her focus is on listening, first and foremost.

鈥淚n order for communities to be resilient, we need not only formal official data, but we also need to listen to community members about how their intersectional identities affect the way decision makers imagine those processes and impacts of watery disasters,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淪o, through actually listening to lots of our Floridian neighbors, we're able to plan better policies and build more economic and environmental resilience so that the next time we have a water threat, we're ready, our communities are ready and our families are ready.鈥�

Though her work focuses heavily on Florida鈥檚 coasts, 翱鈥橪别补谤测 is always thinking of the way water 鈥� and the issues surrounding it 鈥� connect all people.

鈥淎ll of us as humans grow up with a heavy reliance on water,鈥� 翱鈥橪别补谤测 said. 鈥淚 can track my life through moving through the Great Lakes, to the Ganges in India, to the mighty Mississippi and now to the Gulf. And there wasn't one place that I lived where questions 鈥� such as who owns our water, who is keeping it clean, who is receiving information about the risks 鈥� have been irrelevant.鈥�

For 翱鈥橪别补谤测, these questions are what fuel her research.  

鈥淚 think, as an anthropologist, I'm really interested in the gaps between the way plans ought to go and the way they actually happen in our real, chaotic world,鈥� said 翱鈥橪别补谤测, who is also the Director of the EcoFem Lab and Crescendo Project.

Will Schanbacher, PhD 

Will Schanbacher believes food is a human right. 

He spends much of his time working with the WellFed Community and the Healthy 22nd Street Community Garden, two nonprofits dedicated to building healthier communities through sustainable food systems. His interest in local food sovereignty research began when he moved to East Tampa and started building relationships within the community.

鈥淚 wanted to see if my research in global food sovereignty could be applied to local, urban settings,鈥� Schanbacher, co-founder and director of the 黑料网吃瓜爆料Food Sovereignty Initiative, said.  

Both programs have had a transformative impact on the lives of community members.

鈥淭he Healthy 22nd Street project has helped people start growing their own food, which also introduced them to new healthy recipes,鈥� Schanbacher said. 鈥淧eople mentioned saving money on their weekly groceries, which has become a part of the non-profit's mission statement. Some gardeners mentioned they were able to reduce or come off medications because of physical health improvements.鈥�