Julie Grossman

Research
We aim to make our research results directly applicable to farmer management. To this end, we conduct our work both on research stations as well as working and educational farms. As much as possible, we partner with farmers who have historically been underrepresented in farm ownership, including BIPOC and New American (immigrant) farmers. In recent years we have begun to establish relationships with Minnesota’s native people, including White Earth Nation and Red Lake Nation College. Through these research relationships, we expand the visibility and significance of our work.

Teaching
I am strongly committed to community-based learning in science education. I use community-engaged activities to link my classroom to local community partners working to increase student knowledge about food access in our Twin Cities community. By connecting my students with community partners, they learn to address food system issues in an inclusive way, while developing disciplinary and cultural competency skills. I also recognize that reflection is the key to successful learning. As a result, I create classroom opportunities for students to reflect on community experiences.

Student Engagement
Students in our lab are given ample opportunities to engage with the community, including many NGO's doing food advocacy work in our region and organic farming communities. Currently, students are involved with the development and implementation of workshops to deliver soil health information to immigrant farmers in collaboration with local NGO's, organizing community speaker events through their interdisciplinary graduate club FEASt, and delivery of science-based information through workshops we deliver at farmer conferences such as Marbleseed (formerly MOSES), the MN Organics Conference and more. We work hard to develop communication skills students can take with them beyond graduate school, via collaboration with organizations doing work that is meaningful in our community.