Speaker to address environmental issues April 25 at Siena Heights University

ADRIAN — An agroecologist from Michigan State University will discuss ending hunger, conserving biodiversity and halting climate change at Siena Heights University.

M. Jahi Johnson-Chappell will be the Winter 2024 William Issa Endowment Speaker on the Environment on Thursday, April 25, at Siena Heights University, a news release said. His presentation at 7 p.m. in Rueckert Auditorium is hosted by SHU's Sustainable College Committee. Rueckert Auditorium is inside Dominican Hall.

Johnson-Chappell's presentation will cover food sovereignty, food justice and agroecology and why these concepts support just sustainability, the release said.

"Drawing on his work in Brazil and the United States, he will emphasize the importance of understanding how change happens, discuss where significant advancements in ending hunger and conserving biodiversity have happened, and examine how each of us may act toward the positive change needed to end hunger and halt climate change through deepening our commitment to and understanding of what it means to be a democracy," the release said.

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Johnson-Chappell is the director of the Center for Regional Food Systems and a professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State, where he additionally holds the W.K. Kellogg Foundation endowed chair for food, society and sustainability. Over the past 22 years, Johnson-Chappell has researched and advocated at international, national and local levels for participatory, socially just and ecologically sustainable agrifood systems that center the voices of farmers, laborers and the communities they serve. He previously had faculty positions at Washington State University and Coventry University’s Center for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) in the United Kingdom.

In the nonprofit sector, Johnson-Chappell has previously served as the executive director of the Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network, which offers direct support and organizing for Black, sustainable farmers in the southeastern United States and U.S. Virgin Islands; as the executive director of the think tank Food First; and as senior scientist and director of agroecology and agricultural policy at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Additionally, he was a founding board member of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) and has previously served as a member of the executive committee of the Agroecology Fund and as the vice chair of the board of Thousand Currents, an international grassroots foundation.

Johnson-Chappell holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology, both from the University of Michigan.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Speaker to address environmental issues at Siena Heights University