Dr. Christine C. Caruso will provide an applied overview of Environmental Psychology research in the context of school food. This grows out of a broader project examining changes in lunch programs in six different districts across the US. For this talk, we will explore the use of multiple methods to investigate the ways in which the space of the cafeteria impacts students’ experience of their meal programs.
Dr. Caruso is a Public Health Researcher and Environmental Psychologist, currently serving as Research Fellow for School Food Focus/FoodCorps, where she is contributing to a study investigating values-based procurement practices in school food, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her research interests focus on food systems, institutional food, social determinants of nutrition, participatory democracy, and health equity. In addition, she currently serves as a member of the Nutrition across the Lifespan working group for the City of Hartford’s Food Policy Commission, as well as a steering committee member for Hartford Decide$, the participatory budgeting organization serving Hartford, CT.