Below is my Prezi presentation, from a 4 minute “speed talk” on my research a week ago:

The main points of the narrative are below:

1. Frame 1: My pre-thesis research:
   • I’m going to give a brief sense of where my research has gone, and my hopes for where it’s going.
   • My research has evolved– or wandered– but I’ve realized that it centers around food.
   • Food represents some of the most important ways humanity both relies upon and impacts the planet.
   • We need better models to understand this relationship– models that are sensitive to changing environmental conditions (including climate), and changing management (including adaptation).
2. Frame 2: My thesis:
   • Perhaps more importantly, we need models powerful enough to capture feedbacks.
   • Harvests feedback and affect the harvesters: Fluctuations in a harvest affect producers in immediate and long-term ways.
   • Producers aren’t mechanical or linear: they respond dynamically to conditions.
   • Producers are part of the system, and I’m interested in understanding these systems as wholes.
3. Frame 3: The greater whole:
   • These feedback loops are part of a larger integrated system of how food works.
   • Example: When farmers use excessive inputs in the course of their management, it impacts the environment, including that of fishers.
   • Example: 1/3 of fish caught is sold as fishmeal, which goes to feed livestock. These are all connected.
4. Frame 4: What we eat becomes a driving force throughout this integrated system.
5. Frame 5: A call for help:
   • Consumption patterns feed back on the production system, which feeds back on large environmental processes like climate change.
   • We need integrated models with all these parts to understand the whole and find leverage points where policies can make a difference.
   • I’d like to invite people from many fields to help out: biologists, computer scientists, economists, and foodies too.
   • Help me better represent the vast opportunities the food system holds for a sustainable future.