Photo by Sean Fraga
Melina Shannon-DiPietro is an organic farmer turned executive director. In 2003 she traded in her stirrup hoe for a laptop, and joined Yale to help found the Sustainable Food Project. For the past six years, she has worked with colleagues, faculty, and students to create meaningful opportunities for college students in food, agriculture, and sustainability. Her biggest compliment came this year, when a student called her Yale's Dean of Food.
Before coming to New Haven, Melina farmed in Maine, Massachusetts, and Sicily. She fell in love with food in Palermo and Rome while researching women's leadership in the Italian anti-mafia movement, and food and community in Italian feste festivals). She graduated from Harvard in 2000. She has been a teacher at the Chewonki Semester Program and a management consultant with Bain & Company. She has collaborated on projects with the USDA People's Garden Initiative, The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the 2008 Venice Biennale, and Harvard University.
The Yale Sustainable Food Project is an ambitious project to change the way our nation thinks about food and agriculture. The Sustainable Food Project's work has been written about in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Organic Style, Connecticut Magazine, The Hartford Courant, Chicago Tribune, E Magazine, Elle Magazine, and The Yale Daily News, and been reported on by the BBC, WSHU, and WTNH-Channel 8.
SHOP THE ATLANTIC FOOD MARKETPLACE
Subscribe to Atlantic Food
