Bio: Professor Lydia Zepeda

Lydia Zepeda is professor emerita of consumer science of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has a PhD and MS in agricultural economics from the University of California at Davis. She has published over 60 scholarly articles on consumer food choices, food production, food waste, food access and food policy: see www.localandorganicfood.org In 2018 she taught economics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She has been a volunteer Spanish language interpreter for family and immigration legal services at the University of Wisconsin, for the CARA pro bono project at the Family Detention Center in Dilley Texas, and is a volunteer legal advocate at Tacoma Community House. She is treasurer of Wisconsin University Union, on the advisory board of Slow Food University of Wisconsin, a volunteer grant-writer for West Point School of Music, a volunteer for Hilltop Urban Garden, and a volunteer for the League of Women Voters Tacoma-Pierce County, organizing and moderating a symposium on immigration policy in January. She is working a book, “Bad Choices,” about the food system.