College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

Emma Gaalaas Mullaney is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. Her dual-PhD is in Geography and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Since 2010, Emma has served as a Lead Delegate to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Commission on the Status of Women, and as a Contributing Author on UN Environmental Programme Global Environmental Outlook reports. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with smallholder farmers and agricultural extension programs in Central Mexico, the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Commonwealth of Dominica, and Timor Leste. Her current research project, in collaboration with Laura Schmitt Olabisi, combines ethnography and participatory systems dynamics modeling to better understand and support small-scale farmer livelihoods and agrobiodiversity in the urban and rural landscapes of Michigan.