Name: Kate Schneider

Pronouns: She/her

Year Graduated: 2011

I am a researcher at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. My work focuses on food policy and food systems, with a focus on equitable access to healthy diets, labor in agrifood systems, and food system transformations. I currently lead the data team for the Food Systems Countdown Initiative, a large collaborative effort of over 60 multidisciplinary scientists from dozens of institutions working to monitor and understand food systems and their transformation to meet the 2030 global goals. I also collaborate with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and other scholars on multiple projects related to understanding employment and value added in agrifood systems. My domestic (US) work focuses on understanding the role of prices and preferences in diet quality outcomes, mechanisms that protect access to nutrition, and how to encourage healthier diets. An overarching theme of my work is a focus on data gaps and creative use of existing data to answer new questions.

I hold a PhD in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Prior to my PhD, I spent five years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a program officer in agricultural development where my work involved a wide range of issues including gender, food systems, nutrition, environment, data, policy research, evaluation, and measurement. I have a Master of Public Administration and a Certificate in International Development from the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington where I also conducted food, agriculture, and development policy research as part of the Evans Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR). I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at McGill University. Outside of work, I’m a dedicated practitioner of yoga, spend a lot of time reading, love to cook and garden, and spend time with my family and our dogs.

I graduated from the Evans School in 2011, but even while I was still there as a student it was already setting me on my career path in agricultural development and food policy. The combination of the core curriculum, the international development certificate, and my research assistant job on the EPAR team set me up for my immediate next professional steps at the Gates Foundation but also gave me the foundation I also needed to ultimately go on for a Ph.D. The Evans School was a really formative place for me and I give back because I want future students to benefit from everything I had the opportunity to learn and experience there!