College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources celebrates leaders in our college and Michigan State University who built a legacy now and in the past.

Then: Mabel Jewell Lucas

Mabel Jewell Lucas, from Lansing, graduated from Michigan Agricultural College in 1927. She was one of the first African American women to earn a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from MAC.

Now: Kimberly Carr, Ph.D.

Kimberly Carr, Ph.D., joined the MSU Center for Regional Food System in 2019 as a food sovereignty and racial equity post-doctoral research associate. Her research interests lie at the intersectionality of environmental injustice, food insecurity, and health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities and under-served populations.

Carr’s position encompassed a shared collaboration between the Center for Regional Food Systems connected with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity connected with the College of Arts and Letters.

She currently works as a resource specialist in the Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia.

“I can only imagine what Ms. Lucas went through…being black, being a woman, and then being a black woman in the Midwest in the 1920s.” - Kimberly Carr