IPS Insights: The Future of Food

Have you ever wished you had support to take advantage of a professional or career development opportunity that lies outside the scope of your academic research? The UCSB Individualized Professional Skills (IPS) Program is designed to help graduate students and postdoctoral scholars fill in the funding gaps for pursuing opportunities that support your professional development in a variety of career trajectories.

IPS Insights: In our series, "IPS Insights," previous awardees share about their IPS-funded experiences in short informational videos. This week's featured video is by Mackenzie Wade, a graduate student in Anthropology.

Mackenzie used the IPS funds to plan and attend an event at SXSW Austin titled The Future of Food, which brought together a diverse group of speakers and organizations to discuss how to build more sustainable food systems and participate in interactive activities. Watch her video to learn more about her experience!

In Mackenzie's Words: What I Learned

"Our dominant food system is wrought with inequity, unsustainable practices, lack of transparency, and many more interrelated socio-environmental issues that impact people disproportionately. From the ivory tower, it is often difficult to see how my research makes an impact on these complex processes that feed (or fail to feed) our communities. However, there are people and organizations working to make change and, through my involvement in The Future of Food event series, I was able to help build the stage (literally and figuratively) to amplify the voices of these groups, and provide a free, accessible space for learning and conversation to members of the public (online and in-person). In March 2022, through support from the Individualized Professional Skills Program, I traveled to Austin, Texas to help organize The Future of Food. The main event series featured two full days of free and accessible programming with discussions, chef-prepared "future food" dishes (e.g. plant based proteins, insects, mushrooms), and food-based art activations. As one of the event organizers, I helped manage the run of show, organize speakers, network with food-based nonprofits and businesses, and connect involved organizations and attendees with one another. The event proved to be a crash-course in networking, and event organization, and I learned how to effectively communicate my skills and research to a non-academic audience. I encourage anyone in academia to seek out a truly public-facing conference or event, and to become involved in its organization. The work we do as academics is valuable, but taking the opportunity to see how research and policy impacts people, social enterprises, and non-profit organizations by giving these groups the space to share and discuss helps make our academic work more meaningful, and provides new avenues for us to apply our skills in other sectors."

IPS Program Overview

Awards up to $1000 are granted to eligible UCSB graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from any discipline who wish to individually tailor their career paths with outside professional development opportunities. The purpose of the IPS program is to help grad students and postdocs take greater agency in their own career path by funding exploration of a range of professional development opportunities across a variety of career and skill interests.

The IPS Program is a collaboration between the Professional Development Series at the Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships; Graduate Division; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; UCSB Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative and CNSI Technology Incubator; Career Services; UCSB's divisional deans; and external donors. Learn more about the program here!