Lisa Trocchia, PhD
Faculty and Director of MA Transformative Food Systems
she/her/they
Lisa brings decades of experience as an educator to her role as Director of the graduate program in Transformative Food Systems at Prescott College. Extensive food systems praxis as well as transdisciplinary scholarship support her passion for the role of food systems change in leveraging transformative social change. As a member and project advisor for the Conscious Food Systems Alliance (CoFSA), an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme, she actively engages with social network design, communication, and education as conscious approaches to activating equity, collaborative self-organizing, and regenerative processes.
Dr. Trocchia is a sensory ethnographer with research interests that integrate the performance of food, cultural foodways, and the modulation of affect embodied in food spaces. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Miami University, a Master of Science degree in Sustainable Food Systems from Green Mountain College, and holds a Ph.D. in the Social Ecology of Food from Ohio University.
Lisa teaches “Food Systems,” the foundational course in the program, as well as:
- Critical Perspectives: Food, Place, & Identity
- Building Diverse Networks for Change
- Cultural Foodways and Sustainable Diets
Recent research includes: “ Cretan Foodways: The Intangibles” a reference to UNESCO’s designation of the Mediterranean Diet as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” And, “Understanding an emergent COVID-19 regional hunger prevention network: Communicating network value through qualitative analysis and community-based digital storytelling.”
Recent Publications:
- Trocchia-Baļķīts, L., Moran, T, and Suggs, C. (2021). “In Seeds, We Hold the Future: A Survey of Why and How Seeds are Saved in Southeastern Ohio.” In From Surviving to Thriving in Appalachia: Positive Narratives about Community Engagement. Michele Morrone and Tiffany Arnold (Eds.). Athens: The Appalachian Rural Health Institute Press.
- Trocchia-Baļķīts, L. (2020). “Appalachian Ohio: Food Systems and COVID-19 through a Bioregional Lens.” The New Farmer’s Almanac. Vol. 5.
- Trocchia-Baļķīts, L. (2019). “The Revolution Under the Table: On the Social Ecology of the U.S. Local Food Movement.” In the Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics, Uri Gordon and RuthKinna (Eds.), London: Routledge.
Recent Presentations:
“Advanced Degrees in Sustainable Food Systems: Creating a Career with Impact,” The Academy of Nutrition on behalf of the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition (HEN) Dietetic Practice Group. May 14, 2024
“Decentralised Learning for Regenerative Futures: Transforming Community through Equitable Agroecological Networks,” TCX York: Organising for Transformation, June 25-27, York, United Kingdom
“Cultivating a Global Curriculum for Local Leadership in Regenerative Food Systems,” Reimagining Education Conference 4.0, Oct 24-27, 2024