INFAS Food Systems Fellowship (INFAS-FSF)
The 2026–2027 academic year marks the second year of the INFAS Food Systems Fellowship (INFAS-FSF). We are thrilled to welcome five graduate fellows as this year's cohort. The INFAS-FSF is designed to support graduate students in food systems-related fields, especially those who are underrepresented and under-supported. This academic year-long fellowship (Sept-May) provides mentorship, professional development, and networking opportunities to advance the careers of emerging food systems leaders who are committed to ethically and equitably engaging communities in their present and/or future work.
For questions about the INFAS-FSF or to learn more please reach out to the INFAS Coordinator at: [email protected]
Current INFAS-FSF FellowsCurrent INFAS-FSF Mentors
Current Fellows
Alexandra Cenatus
Ph.D. student in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Alexandra Cenatus is a Ph.D. student in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Director of Programs at Maryland Humanities, where she works to make the humanities accessible and community-centered. She holds a master's degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida. She is passionate about the intersection of food, culture, and migration, particularly how social transformation in Haiti shapes culinary traditions and eating practices within Haitian communities in the diaspora.
Her doctoral research centers on defining and mapping Haitian foodways, exploring food production, access, cooking, and knowledge transmission as interconnected layers of Haitian culinary life. Through this work, she hopes to showcase how food can be used as both a subject and a method while situating Haitian cuisine and culinary practices within the broader context of the African diaspora and Latin American Studies.
Alexandra has worked at the intersection of scholarship and service throughout her career. In 2021, she co-authored the Haitian American Dream Timeline, a digital humanities project chronicling the history of Haitian immigration to the United States. She serves on the Maryland 250 Commission and the Baltimore 250 Commission, and is a board member of the Haitian Studies Association. Recognized in 2025 as one of the Maryland Daily Record's Leading Women Under 40, her work is guided by a core belief: that meaningful engagement begins by meeting communities where they are.
Andres Hernandez
M.S. student in Agricultural, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Andres Hernandez is a second-year graduate student in the M.S. program in Agricultural, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research focuses on agrivoltaics, soil health, and sustainable agriculture. Through his thesis, he studies how agricultural land can support both food production and renewable energy.
Andres’s work is connected to the VANGUARD project, a USDA-funded Climate-Smart Commodities initiative focused on validating agrivoltaic systems with underserved agricultural producers in the Rio Grande Valley. What excites him most about this work is the possibility of using field-based research to help farmers and land managers respond to environmental stress, resource limitations, and changing land-use pressures.
Originally from Colombia, Andres brings experience in sustainability, food security, and community-based environmental projects. As a Latino graduate student at a minority-serving institution in the U.S.–Mexico border region, he is committed to research that is clear, culturally sensitive, and practical. In the future, he hopes to pursue a Ph.D. and contribute to food systems work that connects agricultural science with community needs.
Elsa Calderon
Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Elsa is a PhD candidate studying Black landownership at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned her master's degree in plant and soil science from Tuskegee University. During her first summer at UCSC, she had the opportunity to do a research collaboration between the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and Alcorn State Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Policy Research Center, aimed to identify whether heirs property owners were aware of their improved eligibility for resources under the 2018 farm bill. Elsa also had the opportunity to collaborate with the National Family Farm Coalition to try to understand the threats to Black land ownership in the Mississippi Delta.
Through this work, they discovered that regions dominated by commercial agriculture and financial investors, drives up land prices, and residents experience higher rates of food insecurity. Elsa hopes to reveal the urgent need for more research on economic disparities and food insecurity arising from higher land concentration.
Iʻokepa “Kepa” Seward
M.S. student in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Iʻokepa “Kepa” Seward is a graduate student in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His work focuses on food systems, agroforestry, urban agriculture, and community-based planning in Hawaiʻi. Kepa is passionate about helping create healthier relationships between people, food, community, and the environment through regenerative and place-based approaches to land stewardship.
Right now, his graduate research focuses on food sovereignty, agroforestry, and resilient local food systems, especially how planning and policy can support community wellbeing and ecological restoration. Through this work, he has become increasingly interested in the connection between food systems, cultural stewardship, and long-term resilience. His work combines both academic research and hands-on experience through farming, restoration work, and community engagement across Hawaiʻi.
Kepa has worked and volunteered at farms, restoration projects, and agroforestry sites throughout the islands, including helping restore a former dump site into a regenerative organic farm using Hawaiian agroforestry principles. He is also involved with the Impact Practitioners program and the Social Innovation Lab through the University of Hawaiʻi’s Office of Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation, where he contributes to feasibility research connected to agroforestry, mālama ʻāina, and community resilience initiatives.
In the future, Kepa hopes to help develop community-based projects and planning approaches that strengthen local food systems, restore ecosystems, and reconnect people with the land. He hopes to continue bridging research, implementation, and community engagement to help create healthier and more resilient futures in Hawaiʻi and beyond.
Lia Faaleava
Ph.D. student in Geography at the University of California, Davis
Lia Faaleava is a first-year PhD student in Geography at the University of California, Davis, a full-time employee at UC Berkeley, and a mother of two children under the age of two. She earned her M.S. in Community Development from UC Davis.
A Samoan scholar, Lia investigates how foods introduced through colonialism, migration, and global trade become woven into Pacific Island cultural traditions and how those changes influence community health. Building on her master's research on food literacy among Samoans in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is developing research focused on the cultural meanings attached to food and their implications for health among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.
Outside of academia, Lia serves as a grant writer and grant administrator for Pasifika By Design and owns Flip It Gurl, a small business that combines furniture restoration, Pasifika-inspired art, and community fundraising. She believes meaningful solutions to food- and health-related challenges must be informed by the communities most affected by them. Her long-term goal is to work alongside Pacific Island communities to produce culturally grounded research that informs healthier futures and is returned to the communities that help shape it.
Current Mentors
Andrew Smolski
Assistant Professor
Rural Sociology and Latin American Studies
Penn State University
Athena Ramos
Associate Professor
Department of Health Promotion
University of Nebraska Medical Center
Michelle Miller
Distinguished Researcher III
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Noa Lincoln
Professor
Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences
Co-Executive Director, Ke O Mau Center for Sustainable Island Food Systems
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Mrill Ingram
Participatory Action Research Scientist
Center for Integrated Agricultural Studies
University of Wisconsin–Madison & Michael Fields Agricultural Institute