INFAS Graduate Fellows Programs (IGFP)

INFAS has helped develop two recent pilot graduate fellowship programs through partnerships with the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) and the Carver Integrative Sustainability Center (CISC) of Tuskegee University's College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences. 

The 2023-24 academic year will the second year for the Tuskegee-INFAS CISC Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Fellowship. We welcomed 6 fellows and 11 honorees from HBCUs who are pursuing degrees in food systems, agriculture, natural resources and related fields. 

The IAC-INFAS Tribal Fellowship Program (ITFP) was piloted in 2020-21 with 11 Native American graduate students working in food systems. Together, IAC and INFAS has supported three cohorts of fellows through 2023.  The IAC-INFAS fellowship will be paused for the 2023-24 academic year while IAC undergoes some exciting changes. Stay tuned to hear about next steps with this fellowship. 

IAC-INFAS Tribal Fellowship Program Tuskegee-INFAS CISC HBCU Fellowship Program  

INFAS Graduate Fellowship History

Both the IAC- and Tuskegee- INFAS fellowship collaborations build on an INFAS-led pilot program in 2018-19 that offered fellowships to three graduate students studying food systems at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Dr. Joanna Friesner, lead the INFAS piloted food system fellowship program and fellows received stipends and were matched with faculty mentors from the INFAS network.  The fellows were:

Kimberly Carr (MPH):   PhD Candidate in Integrative Biosciences at Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, Alabama. Research project: Health Disparities, Food Insecurity and Environmental Injustice among United States Black Adults.

Monyai Chavers: Master of Arts candidate in Political Science at Howard University, Washington, D.C.  Research project: The Demand for Food and Land: Views from Liberia

Lindsey Lunsford (MEM): PhD candidate in Integrative Public Policy and Development at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. Research project: Telling the Story of the Alabama Black Belt’s Food Systems.

All three presented their work in a July 2019 webinar, Structural Racism in the Food System: Perspectives from Black Women Scholars.

INFAS hopes to raise funding to re-establish a related fellowship program, ideally with an HBCU partner organization. To share ideas and get involved with that, please