Community-based Research

Building Sustainable & Resilient Cities

Thanks to generous grant funding by Bank of America, Falk School of Sustainability and Environment Assistant Professor Iris Grossmann, Ph.D. has recruited a team of students and faculty to work on a multi-year community-based sustainability project in Homewood with community partners Homewood Children’s Village (HCV) and Operation Better Block (OBB). The project dovetails with a course Grossman teaches, Building Sustainable & Resilient Cities.

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Photo of volunteers wearing fake milk mustaches and holding milk cartons

Smarter Lunchrooms in Pittsburgh

Simple changes in the environment can lead to healthier lunchtime choices. That’s the thinking behind the Smarter Lunchrooms Movement (SLM), a program started in 2009 by researchers at the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition. In a study funded by Highmark, Chatham graduate student Dani Lyons, Master of Arts in Food Studies ’16 teamed up with food services dietician Elizabeth Henry to bring it to 19,000 children across all 56 elementary, middle, and high schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools system in 2015.

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Undergraduate Research in Taiwan

A research team consisting of six undergraduate students and two professors from Chatham University spent four weeks in Taiwan during the summer. Their study focused on female entrepreneurs operating small-scale, regionally-based restaurants and lodging businesses, emphasizing gender issues in business and examining the relationship networks of women entrepreneurs.

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Community Research in Food & Health

Assistant Professor of Nutrition in the Food Studies program Mim Seidel, MS, RD, LDN, found out that the Aetna Foundation was looking to fund a project that addresses healthy eating in low-income communities—an ideal match for Mim, whose interests (and deep experience) lie in food security, sustainable systems, and health. The Aetna Foundation agreed, and Mim’s project was funded. What followed was an experiential, project-based class that Mim taught in the spring of 2015—FST613: Community Research: Food and Health.

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