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Jennifer Hodbod

Jennifer Hodbod

Assistant Professor, Department of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University

jhodbod@msu.edu

517-355-0312

Department of Community Sustainability
Michigan State University
480 Wilson Rd, Room 310B
East Lansing, MI 48824

Titles

  • Affiliate Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
  • Assistant Professor, Department of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University

Biography

Jennifer Hodbod is an assistant professor in the Department of Community Sustainability, where she researches and teaches the topic of resilient food systems – environmentally and economically sustainable food systems that can equitably feed a growing global population whilst adapting to security threats such as climate change, changing preferences and economic shocks. To integrate these components, she utilizes environmental social science and political ecology methods within a novel and integrative research design for investigating human-environment interactions – resilience assessment. Taking this perspective allows her to investigate impacts across multiple scales, to highlight all impacts – intended or not – for all actors. Jennifer practices applied research in order to test and disseminate potential solutions in food systems. Her collaborators include members of key research and engagement organizations, academics from multiple disciplines and universities, local and national governments, NGOs, and smallholder and commercial producers.

Jennifer has a PhD in Environmental Social Science from the University of East Anglia (UK), within the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and conducted postdoctoral research at Arizona State University, within the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, part of the Global Institute of Sustainability. Her PhD research examined the impacts of biofuel expansion on social-ecological systems in Ethiopia, investigating the consequences at different scales on food security, livelihoods, the environment, and energy security using interdisciplinary methods. Her postdoctoral research investigated varied solutions from urban agriculture to Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing, studying their impact on social-ecological system resilience and scalability.

 

Education

  • PhD, Environmental Social Sciences, University of East Anglia, 2013
  • MRes, Environmental Social Science, University of East Anglia, 2009
  • MSci, Environmental Geoscience, University of Bristol, 2008

Expertise

Journal Articles

2015

Blaber-Wegg, T., J. E. Hodbod and J. Tomei. 2015. Incorporating equity into sustainability assessments of biofuels. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 14:180-186. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.05.006. (link )

Hodbod, J. E. and H. Eakin. 2015. Adapting a social-ecological resilience framework for food systems. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 5(3):474-484. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0280-6. (link )

Hodbod, J. E., J. Tomei and T. Blaber-Wegg. 2015. A comparative analysis of the equity outcomes in three sugarcane-ethanol systems. The Journal of Environment & Development 24(2):211-236. DOI: 10.1177/1070496515583556 . (link )

2014

Hodbod, J. E. and W. Adger. 2014. Integrating social-ecological dynamics and resilience into energy systems research. Energy Research & Social Science 1(inaugural):226-231. (link )

Moore, M., O. Tjornbo, E. Enfors, C. Knapp, J. E. Hodbod, J. Baggio, A. Norstrom, P. Olsson and D. Biggs. 2014. Studying the complexity of change: toward an analytical framework for understanding deliberate social-ecological transformations. Ecology and Society 19(4):54. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06966-190454.

2013

Hodbod, J. E. and J. Tomei. 2013. Demystifying the social impacts of biofuels: where is the evidence?. Geography Compass 7(7):478-88. (link )

Book Chapters

2015

Tomei, J., J. E. Hodbod and T. Blaber-Wegg. 2015. Sugarcane-ethanol systems in Brazil, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Pp. 37-46 In: Tomei, J. and D. Gent eds., Equity and the energy trilemma: delivering sustainable energy access in low income communities. London:IIED. (link )

2014

Adger, W. and J. E. Hodbod. 2014. Ecological and Social Resilience. Handbook of Sustainable Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Adger, W., J. Pulhin, J. Barnett, G. Dabelko, G. Hovelsrud, M. Levy, U. Oswald Spring, C. Vogel, H. Adams, J. E. Hodbod, S. Kent, M. Tarazona, P. Aldunce and R. Leichenko. 2014. Chapter 12: Human Security. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability: Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. (link )