ABSTRACT
When I was a doctoral student trying to find my way, I sat down one day in the office of my advisor, Diego Rose. His office was on one of the highest floors of the School of Public Health on Canal Street in New Orleans. From the floor to ceiling windows, you could see the twisted curves of the Mississippi River winding its way through the city to its termination in the Bayou of the gulf coast. Every time I stepped into his office, he seemed to intuit the message that I needed to hear. This time I was trying to finalize what would be the focus of my dissertation. After weighing in on a few of my propositions, he straightforwardly offered that whatever I decided to study should be something that generated intense curiosity. Something that I could dedicate many years of my life to trying to understand. Something that would propel me through the arduous path that I did not yet realize I had already gotten too far down to turn back. Perhaps most importantly, something that I believed would contribute to our understanding of sustainable food systems.
