03 May What’s So Urban About Food Security? The Why and Where of Hunger in Accra Ghana
Anna Carla Lopez-Carr
Monday, May 3 / 12:00 PM
HSSB 4020
Dr. Lopez-Carr is a geographer researching the spatial complexities of urban food security in West Africa. As the developing world continues to urbanize at lightning pace, health research in these newly urbanized areas falls further and further behind. Her study takes a novel approach to food security research using geographic tools like GIS, remote sensing, and spatial statistics to unravel the many layers that make up urban life and urban food security in Accra, Ghana. Using mixed methods, Lopez-Carr explores the underpinnings of what leaves households wanting for food, and how the urban environment plays an active role in food security.
Lopez-Carr completed her doctorate degree in Geography from the SDSU/UCSB Joint Doctoral Program in 2009, and is currently working as a National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellow on the “Health, Poverty, and Place in Accra, Ghana” project at SDSU with her former dissertation chair and geography professor, John Weeks. She spent many months researching her project in Ghana, occasionally falling prey to giant flying cockroach invasions or gnarly food-borne micro-organisms. But adventure is what inspired Dr. Lopez-Carr to pursue Geography in the first place. In a former life as a United Nations consultant in Rome, Lopez-Carr researched local food systems, trekking through Central American jungles and riding camels across Egyptian deserts alike. Lopez-Carr hopes to continue her research in food security and local food systems in Africa and Latin America, while also pursuing projects in underserved communities closer to home.
Sponsored by the IHC’s African Studies RFG and the Latin American Studies Speakers Series, Tequila Mondays.