Dr. Jennifer Schmitt is the principal investigator and manager of the proposed project titled “A community table: food waste and climate change”. Dr. Schmitt’s responsibilities will include overall research management, participating in the community-based co-creation of the research, assisting in the management and development of the interactive art and citizen science tool, seeking out additional funding, and overseeing the project coordinator and the postdoctoral researcher. 

Dr. Schmitt is the Program Director and Lead Scientist for the NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise (NorthStar), a research program at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE). IonE strives to confront sustainability challenges and accelerate the application of solutions. It uses the interdisciplinary tools of academia, brings thought-leaders together, and reaches outside the University to play a critical role in creating a sustainable future for Minnesota and the world. IonE is an unusual space in academia where a team such as the one on this proposal, with a sustainability scientist, historian, applied economist, gender and women’s studies scholar, and extension educator can be supported.  

Dr. Schmitt's research focuses on engaged scholarship in the area of sustainability science. This includes collaborating with practitioners in the private, governmental, and non-profit sectors on sustainability research questions. Her research spans many topic areas as it is often based on the sustainability questions facing the practitioner community. This has included such wide-ranging topics as supply chains, resource mapping, food waste, carbon reporting, energy efficiency, corporate sustainability, the sharing economy, resource flows, ethanol production, community conservation, and sustainable development. As a practitioner focused researcher, Dr. Schmitt has often acted as a conduit between the University and external partners. This has included research discussions with numerous corporations, presentations to practitioner communities, and engagement with the local community. One project to note included an 11-organization effort titled “Open Feasts” that brought education and awareness about food waste to over 3,000 people in the Twin Cities.