- Ph.D. in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia
- M.S. in Environmental Science, Washington State University
- M.A. in Cultural Anthropology, Washington State University
- B.A. (Double Major) in Social Ecology and Environmental Analysis, University of California-Irvine
Bio
Amber completed her PhD in Integrated Studies in Land & Food Systems in 2019. She is a food systems researcher, consultant, and activist committed to creating sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems through knowledge translation and mobilization. Amber is currently a sessional lecturer at the University of British Columbia. Her work covers a range of topics, including food sovereignty, agroecology, resilience, food procurement, and landscape management. She has nearly two decades of experience connecting and mobilizing research, ideas, policies, people, organizations, and communities. Amber’s work spans across the globe, covering Canada, the United States, the Philippines, Brazil, and Costa Rica. Amber is a Bullitt Environmental Fellow, Liu Scholar, Public Scholar, Sustainability Scholar, and Mary and David Macaree Fellow.
Doctoral Dissertation
Amber’s dissertation work was a collaborative project carried out in partnership with a grassroots, farmer-led network responsible for helping over 30,000 smallholders in the Philippines transition to diversified organic systems. The project comparatively measured 13 agro-environmental indicators for resilience across organic and conventional rice systems, carried out an analysis of the organic transition currently underway in the Philippines, and examined the link between the network’s food sovereignty development approach and small-scale farmers’ capacities for resilience building.
Selected Publications
Black, J., Mazac, R., & Heckelman, A., & Elliott, S. (2022). Unwrapping school lunch: Examining the social dynamics and caring relationships that play out during school lunch. Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation, 9, 276-298. https://canadianfoodstudies.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cfs/article/view/544/490
Heckelman, A. & Johnson-Chappell, M.J. & Wittman, H. (2022). A polycentric food sovereignty approach to climate resilience in the Philippines. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 10. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.00033
Heckelman, A. (2019). Enhancing Smallholder Resilience: Organic Transition, Place-based Knowledge & Local Resource Generation. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.
Heckelman, A., Smukler, S., & Wittman, H. (2018). Cultivating climate resilience: a participatory assessment of organic and conventional rice systems in the Philippines. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 33(3), 225-237. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170517000709 (Featured on the United Nation’s FAO website)
Heckelman, A. (2018). A Primer on Local Food Systems [Book review]. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2018.082.003
Holmes, E., Black, J., Heckelman, A., Lear, S., Seto, D., Fowokan, A., & Wittman, H. (2018). “Nothing is going to change three months from now”: A mixed methods characterization of food bank use in Greater Vancouver, Social Science & Medicine, 200: 129-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.01.029
Heckelman, A, & James, D. (2017, March 21). Liu Debates: Should we label GMO foods? [Blog post]. Liu Institute for Global Issues. http://liu.arts.ubc.ca/news-and-view/liu-debates-gmo-debate-summary/
J. Chappell, Moore, J., & Heckelman, A. (2016). Participation in a local city food security program increases ant diversity: the case of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 40(8): 804-829. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2016.1160020
Heckelman, A, & Wittman, H. (2015). Food Sovereignty: A framework for assessing agrarian responses to climate change in the Philippines. ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 8 (1), 87-94. https://aseas.univie.ac.at/index.php/aseas/article/view/515/842