Speakers and Attendees

As Program Officer in Community-based Food Systems, Susan is honored to lead the Wallace Center’s portfolio of work supporting the brilliant community leaders and organizations across America that are using Good Food as a tool for advancing positive social change. She brings close to twenty years of practical experience in direct service, community organizing, nonprofit leadership and food systems development to her work at the Wallace Center, where she leads the Center’s most recent innovation for supporting practitioners working on food systems change—the Food Systems Leadership Network. She’s had the opportunity to work with food and farming communities in very distinct contexts but facing similar struggles, from rural northern California to Navajo country and Chiapas to Kenya, and these experiences have shaped her perspective and approach to solidarity, servant leadership, and food sovereignty. Outside of work, Susan eagerly seeks out music, food, family and friends (preferably together), and is almost always plotting her next adventure to warm, wave-blessed waters and a tropical beach. She is a proud resident of her favorite neighborhood in New Orleans, the historic Faubourg St. John, where she enjoys daily walks around the bayou and City Park with her canine sidekick, Roux.