Olivia Smith: Changing the way we think about food systems and the environment
As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, Olivia Smith recognized the value of an interdisciplinary education. Smith majored in economics and minored in mathematics and French, while taking a broad liberal arts curriculum. But she said her window into the world of climate advocacy and research came from being directly involved on campus: “It really opened my eyes to what it means to implement social change.”
After participating in the campus food sovereignty movement Frances Moore Rappe Assisting with research and fact-checking her work on sustainable food systems, Smith decided her next step was to pursue a graduate degree Columbia Climate Schoolof climate and society program.
“I knew I wanted to do more education because by the time I graduated university, my interests had really only scratched the surface. And I found myself really valued the interdisciplinary approach that this degree takes. I wanted to fully immerse myself in it ,”she says.
Olivia Smith will graduate this summer with an M.A. in the Climate and Society Program. Photo courtesy of Olivia Smith.
In the Q&A below, Smith discusses her goal to change the public understanding of how food, land, power, and the environment are interconnected; what she has learned from her climate and society project; and the advice she will take with her for the next a chance.
While climate and society students like Smith will celebrate graduation and school day This May, they will participate in a variety of exciting summer internships before officially graduating in August.
Can you talk about how you got interested in climate work?
As an undergraduate, I took a lot of courses in history, sociology, and environmental studies at a very liberal arts-focused school. I’m also involved in a lot of social change campus events, though less climate related.
After college, I took a break during COVID and worked for Frances Moore Lappé, whose work focuses on sustainable food systems and how we Americans can make a concrete difference by simply rethinking how we eat and thinking about food Efforts to respond to the climate crisis system more broadly. She’s been writing about the food system for the public since 1970, so to me she’s more reflective of what the food environment movement is like.
My window into the world of climate is mainly through social change, thinking about food and the environment, land and electricity. This kind of got projected onto my economics degree and thinking about how the field of economics and the theory of value built for our society really ignores circumstances and popular forces. This got me thinking about climate and the way those values change beneath our feet.
What has been your biggest takeaway from participating in the climate and society program?
My background is in social sciences, but I’d really like to venture more into harder sciences with this program. I took climate physics at graduate level and learned more about statistical theory and analysis. I also learned a lot about spatial data, which I think is key to working with climate data and environmental data, especially when it comes to justice, because it’s all about accessing and knowing where you are in the larger system.
I’m also excited to be taking a class on the history of the climate crisis. I’ve been able to learn more about the policy.I also took a picture course A community engagement project on race, climate change and environmental justice culminated with a group in New Orleans working to revitalize the historic Black Beach, which had been closed for about 50 years. Now the beach is undergoing community-based projects to revitalize the beach and reopen it to a wider public. We do a lot of soil sampling, water sampling and testing, and a lot of community engagement and community building. This is all thanks to the lecturer’s and course’s keen interest in merging scientific and social science methodologies, and really questioning systems that treat science as the sole dictator of decision-making. It’s about saying that all these systems work together in this interlocking and informative way, rather than just taking science as fact, rather than deconstructing its larger societal paradigm.
How does this plan align with some of your broader goals for the future?
My goals are always changing, and I think this project does embrace that, but also gives me foundational and climate language, literature and research that I want to use to talk about climate and food systems, especially in urban areas, and The climate will stress, change and shape them. So I would love to get involved in this field through advocacy and policy as well as research. I am interested in pursuing a Ph.D. In geography or a related social science field, hoping to influence policy and the way people think about how food, power, and land are interconnected with the environment.
The two semesters this year or so far have given me the ability to further question and engage with different histories, ideas, research methods and discoveries in the work. I know this is a bit vague, but I think my policy-oriented approach is not just disseminating science to policymakers, but using science and the power of people to inform theories of change.
During your education, did you receive any advice that stood out to you?
The best advice I have ever received about teaching life is to be a sponge and always look for places where you can learn more and take the initiative. People won’t always reach out to you. You may need to contact them. It really shows in asking for help and guidance and being very honest with people and saying, ‘I’m feeling a little lost in X, Y, Z.’ I really appreciate your help, your insight. What would you do if you were in my position? Be willing to have conversations that may leave you feeling more overwhelmed than you entered them, and be willing to always recognize that you are still learning, and you will never not learn.
Hold fast to those things that you derive value and meaning from, and let go of those things that don’t serve you at will. If something is missing, make it yourself. I found a lack of very specific food systems courses available to me so I managed to build a group of people in the program where we used old ecology, evolution and biology teaching about food, globalization and the environment The syllabus creates an individual reading group that lasts throughout the semester. It is not the same as a course, but it pushes us to continue our personal interests and work practice within a particular area of our concern. So please be willing to take the extra step if you can. It doesn’t have to be formal in any way. It just has to be something in which you find meaning.
