Alison Blay-Palmer Print

abp linked in photoDr. Alison Blay-Palmer is the founding Director for the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and an Associate Professor in Geography and Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Blay-Palmer’s research and teaching combine her passions for community viability, green economic development, food systems and citizen engagement.  She is the author of ‘Food Fears: From industrial to sustainable food systems’ (2008) and ‘Imagining sustainable food systems: Theory and Practice’ (2010).   She is also the guest editor for two themed issues in, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, the first on ‘Sustainable Communities’ 16(8) and the most recent one titled  ‘Sustainable local food spaces: Constructing communities of food’. The latter builds on her work with colleagues in Canada and the EU through her Nourishing Communities research project (http://nourishingontario.ca) funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food.  Her work includes collaborations with practitioners and academics in Canada including Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, the Maritimes, The Northwest Territories and Quebec, and internationally including partners in Brazil, France, Germany, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, the United States and Wales.