We have a multi-disciplinary and multi-sector team that is well positioned to tackle this problem starting with a pilot in coastal North Carolina.
Lauren Clay – University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Lauren Clay is a disaster scientist and public health researcher. Her research focuses on individual, household, and community recovery from disasters. She has studied Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, and Florence, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the 2013 Moore, OK tornadoes, and the Camp Fire among other disasters and public health emergencies. Her expertise is in disaster disruption to the local food environment and food insecurity. Currently, she has several studies underway examining long-term recovery and public health impacts from Hurricane Katrina, food insecurity following Hurricane Florence and the Camp Fire, food insecurity. Currently, she has several studies underway examining long-term recovery and public health impacts from Hurricane Katrina, food insecurity following Hurricane Florence and the Camp Fire, and several studies looking at food access and security during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Interests:
Community, household, and individual health consequences of disasters and public health emergencies; food environment disruption and food and nutrition insecurity following disasters; stress and mental health; individual and household capital; community resilience
Contact
Julia (Jill) Waity – University of North Carolina, Willmington
Jill’s research and teaching has a focus on public sociology, which combines her early career goals of working with communities to her current work of researching social problems that impact these communities. Currently, her work focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on college student food access. She mentors students in community-engaged research through her Community Engaged Research (CER) Lab.
Research Interests:
Poverty; Stratification and Inequality; Food Access; Community; Policy; Public Sociology; Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Contact
Ashlea Milburn – University of Arkansas
Ashlea Milburn joined the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas in January 2010. Prior to joining the University of Arkansas, she received a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech, and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of Arkansas and Virginia Tech, respectively.
Her primary areas of teaching and research are in Healthcare Systems Engineering and Transportation Logistics. She enjoys applying operations research tools and techniques to problems arising in the healthcare and logistics industries, and having the opportunity to teach students how to do the same in her courses.
Research Interests:
Logistics planning problems, especially those arising in health and humanitarian sectors; Optimization; Heuristics
Contact
Chris Prentice – University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Chris is a Professor of nonprofit management and Founding Director of the Center for Social Impact at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research focuses on nonprofit management and cross-sector collaboration, and is published in leading scholarly journals. He serves as a director on numerous nonprofit boards and as a consultant with various public and nonprofit organizations in North Carolina.. Chris holds a PhD from North Carolina State University, an MPA from George Washington University, and a BA from the University of California, Irvine.
Research Interests:
Nonprofit management, cross-sector collaboration
Contact
Manoj Vanajakumari – University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Manoj Vanajakumari is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics at University of North Carolina Wilmington. His research focuses on issues in socially responsible supply chains with an emphasis on food equity and accessibility. His research also studies sustainability in humanitarian operations. His other research interests include cybersecurity and cross-docking operations
Research Interests:
Humanitarian Logistics, Cyber Security, Production Management.
Contact
Avinash Geda – University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Avinash is an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). His research focuses on Operations Management, with specific interests in food supply chain, industrial symbiosis, waste management supply chain, and online arbitrage among others. Avinash has published research papers on these topics, contributing to the academic knowledge in these areas. Avinash received his Ph.D. in Operations Management and M.S. in Transportation Engineering from the University of Florida
Research Interests:
Sustainability, Food Supply Chain, Multi-channel Operations
Contact
Joe Long – University of North Carolina, Wilmington
Joe studies a wide range of processes in nearshore coastal regions. This includes nearshore hydrodynamics (e.g., waves and currents) and the erosion/accretion of beaches, sand dunes, and barrier islands. His research primarily focuses on understanding these different processes, describing how they interact with each other, and developing numerical models to predict the hazards they can create to people and ecosystems along the coast.
Contact
Ana Casey – Cape Fear Collective
Anna is a Lead Data Scientist with Cape Fear Collective, a non-profit organization based out of Wilmington, North Carolina. She is currently working on building out the community-facing dashboard of localized insights tracking North Carolina’s progress on the state’s Healthy NC 2030 initiative (https://healthycommunitiesnc.org/). Before joining CFC, she received her Ph.D. in Behavior, Cognition & Neuroscience from American University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University. She is a published academic and researcher, a passionate advocate for evidence-based policy and programming.
Nicholas Pylypiw – Cape Fear Collective
Nick is the Director of Data Science at Cape Fear Collective, a nonprofit which supports Southeastern North Carolina’s front-line organizations in combating poverty, racism, poor health and education outcomes, and socioeconomic disparities. He holds a BS in Mathematics and a BS in Mathematics Education from North Carolina State University. After spending a few years teaching high school math, he earned his MS at the Institute of Advanced Analytics at NCSU. Prior to CFC, he honed his data science and consulting skills in the marketing analytics space, transforming the way Fortune 500+ companies (Lowe’s Southwest Airlines, P&G, and many others) think about their customer strategy and value proposition. Born and raised in the Cape Fear region, he currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Kerstin Schreiber – University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Kerstin is the post-doctoral fellow and project manager of this project. Before joining UMBC, she earned a PhD degree in Geography at McGill University where she studied the feasibility of food systems localization from the perspective of agricultural production. In her new role, Kerstin is interested in understanding community response to disasters and developing a better understanding of efficient and effective adaptation strategies. She has worked and studied in Germany, France, Sweden, Canada, and the US.
Research Interests:
Food systems geography; local food systems; disaster research; organizational change; adaptation and resilience
Contact
Partners
University of Maryland Baltimore County – University
A public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, and 29 graduate certificate programs) and the first university research park in Maryland. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity”.
University of North Carolina Wilmington – University
A public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students each year. It is classified among “R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity”.
University of Arkansas – University
A public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System. It offers over 200 academic programs, including a highly regarded history program. Enrollment for the fall semester of 2019 was 27,559. The university is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and had spent $175.5 million on research in FY 2018.
National Science Foundation – Funder
An independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about $8.3 billion (fiscal year 2020), the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States’ colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.
Cape Fear Collective – Organization
We collaborate with our community partners and leverage innovative data science and analytics to generate clear, actionable, hyper-local insights aimed at exposing and programming against inequities.
We rally investors around these causes by using this same data to visualize specific opportunities for systemic change, and direct these financial resources where they can generate the greatest Social Return on Investment.
We commit nurturing and scaling multi-organizational projects, in collaboration with leaders across our community, to drive each project’s success in combating poverty, racism, poor health and education outcomes and social-economic disparities affecting Southeastern North Carolina.
New Hanover County Emergency Management – Organization
New Hanover County Emergency Management works year-round to build a resilient community that is prepared to respond quickly and efficiently to natural and man-made disasters. During emergency events, the department partners with local, state, and federal agencies to keep the county’s residents and visitors safe. The department also facilitates recovery efforts to rebuild our community following disasters.
Support the Port – Organization
Support The Port Foundation, Inc. enhances, cultivates and provides a renewed sense of community ownership and excellence for underserved communities. Through our programming, we increase self-ability and foster a nonviolent environment where excellence in the areas of arts, philanthropy and scholarship are celebrated and expanded.
United Way of the Cape Fear Area – Organization
United Way of the Cape Fear Area works with our community to leverage resources and improve the lives of local people.
As a local, independently operated non-profit organization, we are uniquely positioned to neutrally assess the assets and needs of the people of the Cape Fear region, develop thoughtful solutions, and serve as a trusted steward of the resources and financial investments of the community.
With supportive services from our agency partners, we are able to build strong foundations, feed hungry bellies, and provide supportive healthcare services to all populations across the greater Cape Fear area.
We are governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, all of whom bring thought, leadership, and passion to their organizations. With their creative insight and exceptional drive to ensure our community continues to thrive, United Way presents innovative solutions to some of the toughest, real-time challenges our neighbors face. We are grateful for their support as we continue to work strategically toward our shared goals.
New Hanover Disaster Coalition – Organization
Expander content
Pender Long Term Recovery Group – Organization
The Pender LTRG is a long term recovery group that formed as the result of Hurricane Florence. This group is composed of non profits, faith based organizations, and charitable organizations who work in union to meet the unmet needs of Pender County Residents impacted by disaster. The Pender LTRG works in collaboration with other organizations to assess needs, offer resources, and ensure that residents are assisted after all of their personal insurance, SBA loans, and FEMA assistance have been exhausted.
Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina – Organization
The Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina (the Food Bank) is a nonprofit organization that has provided food for our friends and neighbors facing hunger in 34 counties in central and eastern North Carolina for over 40 years. The Food Bank is an affiliate member of Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger relief charity. In terms of total food distributed, the Food Bank ranks in the top 15 nationally among 200 Feeding America food banks and first in North Carolina. Our food distribution programs and child nutrition programs are based on national models.
Tidal Creek Co-op – Organization
Tidal Creek Co-op is unique. It’s a place to buy the groceries you need to nurture your family, while being part of creating a healthier future for our community and our planet. Tidal Creek provides the most complete shopping option for people in the Greater Wilmington community interested in pursuing a healthy lifestyle and conscious of where their dollars are being spent.
Beyond being a great place to buy groceries, Tidal Creek serves the community in many ways: education, outreach, community partnerships, supporting local charities and building community by providing a place for people to meet, connect, and share information and ideas.
New Hanover County Extension – Organization
Expander content