Amanda Missimer
Dr. Missimer is a Clinical Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the College of Health Sciences, Department of Nutrition, and College of the Environment and Life Sciences, Cooperative Extension. The joint appointment allows her to work on interdisciplinary teams of faculty, students and staff to advance knowledge about food recovery statewide and implement programs to improve food access and food insecurity on the URI campus. Additionally, she instructs courses in several topics, with the most impactful being a grand challenge course on food insecurity as a public health problem with a lens on learning the facts complemented with community members from RI who are impacting change. The programs I co-coordinate, the URI Free Farmers’ Market and Food Recovery for Rhode Island, allow her to blend experiential learning with meaningful community-driven change.

She has led three programs which help solve food insecurity on the URI campus and around RI. First, she reimagined Nutrition 212G: Public Health Nutrition to encourage students to think, not as individuals, but as members of the community whose decisions surrounding food insecurity have lasting effect.  Second Food Recovery for RI (FRRI) diverted about  200,000 pounds of food to directly nourish RI communities. Finally, she spearheads the URI Free Farmers Market (FFM), a community-driven effort connecting URI-grown produce directly to URI students (50% food insecure) without fear of stigmatization.