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Outstanding graduate’s honors’ thesis proposes a link between sustainable food, human health, environmental resilience and social equity

Melanie Sarah Adams had a hunch: Maybe today’s conventional agricultural practices not only degrade the Earth’s environment and threaten future food security but also produce nutritionally imbalanced foods that harm human health.

Adams, an alumna who earned a degree in anthropology,dove into this topic in a general honors thesis titled “Sustainable Production of Nutritious Food for Humanity: Food as the Nexus Between Human Health, Environmental Resilience and Social Equity.”

For this work, she earned high praise, graduating summa cum laude and being named the December 2014 Outstanding Graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Commenting that her thesis tackled a tough, interdisciplinary topic, Adams said: “I was trying to further reframe environmental issues from a human perspective, instead of ‘environment for the environment’s sake.’”

What she’s really asking is, “If we take care of the environment, what all can we gain?”

Ecology professor Carol Wessman, chair of Adams’ honors defense committee, said the committee was not only “highly impressed” but also “awed” with the student’s research and her “high-level synthesis of the literature” on the topic. Acknowledging that synthesizing such disparate literature was no easy feat, Wessman wrote.

“The literature around all of these issues is vast and replete with vague, sometimes single-minded writing.

“And yet Melanie, through admirable persistence and a gift for contemplation, identified the emerging topic of food as a unifying and attractive focus”

"The literature around all of these issues is vast and replete with vague, sometimes single-minded writing. And yet Melanie, through admirable persistence and a gift for contemplation, identified the emerging topic of food as a unifying and attractive focus.”

“We draw our food from the environment; we’re changing our environment in damaging ways; social inequities are seen in the inaccessibility of healthy food; and the consequences of all of these are entangled with one another to such a high degree that we cannot extract ourselves easily unless we, as a society are engaged.”

“[Melanie’s] approach to sustainability through human diet is not in the (scholarly) literature, to the best of our knowledge, and certainly not in such a clear and accessible way.”

Such acclaim from a professional would be striking were it bestowed on a faculty member. Adams accepts it with a sense of humor and humility.

In a speech to fellow honors graduates in December, Adams talked about the difficulty of the project and of the skepticism she had to overcome.

She said her proposal for a thesis was “kind of an insane plan that thoroughly confused most people to whom I talked and also confused me at times!” Still, she found a few mentors who believed in her even before she herself understood how her project would turn out.

“I was working with the somewhat counter-intuitive idea that if we put all of the problems facing human society today next to each other, maybe they will start to seem smaller—and more manageable—than when viewed in isolation,” Adams said in her address.

The emergence of potential solutions “has given me a sense of direction and hope—for myself as an individual and for our generation—that we might just have a chance after all to solve the challenges of our times.”

Her time at the university provided Adams with the opportunity to confront challenges on a global, local and personal scale. Adams recalls a recent conversation with a sophomore who felt that college was beating her down, saying that it was hard for her to juggle all of her obligations, as others seem to do so easily.

Adams responded:

“Coming up with your own definition of success is rewarding. When my own mentors explained their personal journeys to me, I’ve been surprised to hear about their doubts and failures, and have come away with a changed understanding of the process of growing up. My senior year has been about realizing I’ve done things in a way that was right for me, even if my path did not always feel clear. I would encourage students to join a club, a research lab, a student government office, or be an editor for a campus journal. Or do all of those things!

“But the key is to not feel pressure to live up to some ideal superstar image and do everything at once. Be kind to yourself and pick a few things; do them well and know when it is time to explore other avenues.”

As for the future, she’s planning to write a “more concise, boiled-down version” of her thesis for publication. Adams reports that, while she is still figuring out her next professional and personal steps after graduation, she is doing so with a new, welcome sense of direction and identity she gained from completing her honors thesis and seeing how this work is meaningful to others.

Clint Talbott is director of communications and external relations  for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.