Philip Howard
Department of Community Sustainability
Associate Professor
Telephone: 517-355-8431
480 Wilson Road, Room 316
East Lansing, MI 48824
Area of Expertise:
Food systems, political ecology, data visualization
I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Community, Food and Agriculture, as well as a graduate course in Political Ecology. My research focuses on the 'food system.' The food system involves all of the steps required to produce food and get it to our plates–from farming and processing to distribution and consumption. My work is unified by three main questions:
- What changes are occurring?
- What are the impacts of these changes on communities?
- What can communities do to respond positively to these changes?
I currently have two main projects:
- characterizing diversity in the food system, particularly in plant seeds/animal genetics, high-protein foods, and alcoholic beverages
- bridging information gaps between food system actors, including the use of 'ecolabels'