Dr. Sara Edge is the Arrell Chair in Food, Policy & Society, and Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment & Geomatics. Sara’s research program is dedicated to working with community groups, governmental organizations and other stakeholders to strengthen equity and justice in sustainable, resilient food systems. Her work places particular focus on the lived experiences of racialized peoples, immigrants and newcomers in accessing food in diversifying communities. Sara strives to help amplify marginalized voices and cast attention onto novel examples of community self-determination, food sovereignty and entrepreneurialism in an effort to help identify alternative food access pathways. Sara seeks to better understand the unique food justice needs, challenges and opportunities that exist across rural, suburban and metropolitan food systems and geographies, and how decision-makers can plan for and accommodate increasing migration and diversity in small to large cities.

More broadly, Sara is trained as a health geographer that seeks to advance understandings of how and why various environmental risks and benefits are inequitably distributed across society and space and related health impacts. This has included examining how the built environment and socio-cultural factors interrelate to facilitate and/or constrain the health, empowerment, inclusion and/or exclusion of equity seeking populations.

Prior to joining AFI and the University of Guelph, Sara served as an Associate Director of the Centre for Studies in Food Security, and Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. Sara previously completed a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Waterloo, received her PhD in Geography from McMaster University specializing in environment and health, and obtained a Masters of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo.