Interview with Closing the Circle 2025 speaker Kayla de la Haye, PhD – Professor, Director of the USC Food Systems Institute at USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, Director of SC CTSI
Questions in the Closing the Circle 2025 conference speaker interview series written by Elias Jabbe
What does bringing everyone together require and how are you contributing to achieving that with your team?
What this has meant for me in academia, is being intentional about building partnerships with external stakeholders through partnerships with external stakeholders through the whole lifecycle of our research process.
So not just sharing the results of our research with partners and the public once it’s complete, but also working in partnership with these food system stakeholders as we narrow in on important research questions, find novel ways to gather data and evaluate impact, and in collaboratively generating insights from this work and get it to the right people.
Which strategies are you utilizing to help the food sector improve as it undergoes the process of focusing on systems change?
We are focused on making the latest evidence and science accessible to local food stakeholders, and building ecosystems of innovative data, analytics, and technical capacity, so that we are all better equipped to monitor and understand our dynamic local food system.
We are also committed to sharing systems science and systems thinking tools, like network and systems mapping, which can help us develop a shared knowledge of the food system, and better understand its complexities and levers for transformation.
Explore Dr. de la Haye’s report on her projects with USC Dornsife Spatial Sciences Institute and USC Public Exchange focused on improving healthy food access on the Eastside of Los Angeles to learn more.
Visit closingthecircle2025.com and click the logo above to learn more about attending Closing the Circle 2025 on October 17 at UCLA and interviews with conference speakers conducted by Elias Jabbe
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