Measuring the Sustainability of Food Production Systems: Exploring the Solution Space

Perspectives in Global Development: Fall 2022 Seminar Series

Sustainable food systems aim to provide sufficient and nutritious food, while maximizing climate resilience and minimizing environmental impacts. Yet historical practices, notably the Green Revolution, prioritized the single objective to maximize production over other nutritional and environmental dimensions. My research explores ways to maintain humanity's achievements while overcoming past shortcomings of global food systems.

About the speaker

Dr. Davis is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Data Science at the University of Delaware. His work focuses on food system sustainability and environmental change from local to national (India, Nigeria, China, the US) to global scales. His research employs data-driven mixed methods to quantify environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability and to explore food system solutions for improving incomes, nutrition, natural resource use, and climate adaptation. His other work investigates human-environment interactions related to: the socio-environmental effects of large-scale land investments; variability and shock propagation through food supply chains; and the relationship between human migration and global environmental change. Prior to joining UD in 2019, he was a Data Science Fellow and Earth Institute Fellow at Columbia University (New York) and a Nature Net Science Fellow with The Nature Conservancy. He earned his PhD in Environmental Sciences with a focus on Hydrology from the University of Virginia and is a proud graduate of UD (BS Biochemistry).

About the seminar series

The Perspectives in Global Development seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:25 – 1:15 p.m. eastern time during the semester. The series will be presented in a hybrid format with some speakers on campus and others appearing via Zoom. All seminars are shown in Warren 151. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend. The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science as part of courses GDEV 4961, AEM 4961, NTRES 4961, GDEV 6960, AEM 6960, and NTRES 6960.