Research interests

Rachel's research interests are broadly centered on the nexus of global systems sustainability, public health education, and food. Her current research focuses on sustainable food systems and future diet shifts, investigating the potential of protein alternatives (e.g., novel food production systems, legumes, High Nature Value products) to lessen whole diet impacts on environmental and socio-cultural systems. 

Description of research and teaching

Rachel's teaching is centered around the theories and methods of sustainable food systems thinking. She has assisted in the coordinaion of a course on food systems sustainability where students used schematic system models and conceptual frameworks for illustrating and structuring system-level development challenges in food production and consumption systems. Her work helped to build student fluency in describing the key subsystems and associated processes to describe and compare the mainstream conventional food system and alternative systems in terms of ecological/environmental, technological, cultural, social and economic features. Rachel led lecture sessions on key sustainability issues for students to be able to use sustainability assessment criteria and frameworks in discussing these.