Postdoctoral Scholar in Food Justice

Duties and Responsibilities

The Postdoctoral Scholar will join Loyola’s Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture (FSSA) focus area, an interdisciplinary team of scholars and professionals in social sciences, ecology, urban agriculture, business, and sustainability.

The Postdoctoral Scholar will co-construct knowledge in close collaboration with partners in Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, queer, and other communities marginalized within food systems to inform intersectional, actionable, and scalable solutions for re-organizing food systems to achieve equity, sustainability, and resilience.

The Postdoctoral Scholar will interact with scholars across disciplines and practitioners (e.g., growers, producers, processors, distributors, faith leaders, community organizers, and policy advocates) in urban, peri-urban, and rural contexts throughout the Chicago foodshed.

Housed in the School of Environmental Sustainability on Loyola’s Lakeshore Campus, the Postdoctoral Scholar will have opportunities to connect with other Loyola units, such as the Institute for Racial Justice and the Center for Urban Research and Learning.

The appointment is full-time with benefits for one year and funding exists to renew the position for two additional years given satisfactory performance.

The Postdoctoral Scholar will receive robust mentorship by seasoned scholars and have access to funding for professional development activities like conference travel. Responsibilities :

• Facilitate engagement with food justice practitioners and other community partners : develop and sustain relationships based upon trust, communication, and accountability.
• Co-design and co-generate research with food justice practitioners and other scholars, including reviewing literature, collecting and analyzing data, and communicating results with practitioners, policy, and research communities.
• Contribute to funding proposals that support community-identified research priorities.
• Present research results to varied audiences, including practitioners, community members, policymakers, and researchers.
• Produce outreach materials, white papers, policy briefs, etc.
• Collaborate on, with opportunity to lead, peer-reviewed publications.
• Opportunity exists to teach courses within our B.S. in Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture, if desired.
• Perform other duties as required.

Minimum Education and / or Work Experience PhD required in related field. Qualifications Minimum Qualifications :

• Demonstrated ability to conduct research using participatory, community-engaged, and / or decolonizing methodologies.
• Demonstrated familiarity with theoretical frameworks, concepts, policies, and practices associated with food justice and sustainability.
• Strong research skills, including research design, primary data collection, data management, qualitative and / or quantitative data analysis.
• Ability to work constructively in an interdisciplinary research team.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills from a critical, inclusive, and interdisciplinary perspective.
• Strong project management and administrative skills.

Preferred Qualifications :

• Lived experience in and commitment to the communities with whom partner in research.
• Demonstrated ability to prepare research products tailored to practitioners, community members, and policymakers.
• Demonstrated success publishing in the primary research literature.
• Demonstrated success securing external research funding.
• Working knowledge of software, such as NVivo, SPSS, R, or ArcGIS.
• Experience mentoring graduate and undergraduate students in research.
• Fluency in Spanish or other language(s) in addition to English.

Certificates / Credentials / Licenses PhD in a discipline relevant to food systems. Computer Skills Office Suite, Adobe Acrobat, Supervisory Responsibilities No Required operation of university owned vehicles No Does this position require direct animal or patient contact?

No Physical Demands None Working Conditions None