More than 40 people attended the symposium from academia and community organizations.
WYOMISSING, Pa. — Penn State Berks hosted the “Symposium on Community-Based Participatory Research: Food Security and Access for Healthy Futures” on March 19. The objective was to determine how institutions of higher education and community partners can collaborate more effectively to address challenges related to food access and nutritional health. This symposium is part of the “Food Bank Operations Optimization: Data-driven Societal Impact Approach (FOODSIA)” project.
More than 40 people attended from academia and community organizations, including Ben Franklin Technology Partners, CGIAR, County of Berks, Lehigh University, New Journey Community Outreach, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Pennsylvania Department of Health, Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center, Philly INFORMS, Reading Hospital, Salvation Army, United Way, and various Penn State campuses, to name a few.
The keynote address was titled “Humanitarian Supply Chains: Aspects from Food Bank Operations,” presented by Lauren Davis, professor of industrial and systems engineering at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT). She commented that the symposium was very impactful in a number of ways, stating, “First, I was able to hear directly from community leaders about what is most important to them with respect to addressing hunger in their community. Second, I really appreciated the diversity of thought (both in academic background and professional experience) as we tried to develop solutions to some of the most challenging issues around food security.”
Jay Worrall, president of Helping Harvest Fresh Food Bank, followed the keynote address with a discussion on the mission of the organization and its collaboration with Penn State Berks.
Jess Umbenhauer, chief programs officer at Helping Harvest, commented, “Working with Penn State Berks faculty on this community-based action research project has been a great opportunity for Helping Harvest to look at our work through a lens of efficiency and effectiveness, backed by our own data. The expertise of the faculty aided us in analyzing that data and presenting us with opportunities for our work to make a greater impact in providing access to food for low-income neighbors throughout Berks and Schuylkill counties.”
Abdullah Konak (standing) facilitated one of the workshops.
Two engaging workshops were held to identify the challenges and opportunities in food security and to design sustainable solutions with societal impact: The first was titled “Stakeholder Engagement and Mapping” and the second was “Research Co-Design for Sustainable Societal Impact,” facilitated by Sadan Kulturel-Konak and Abdullah Konak, respectively.
Penn State Berks Chancellor Radha Pyati and Janelle Larson, professor of agricultural economics and division head of engineering, business and computing, gave an overview of the college faculty's community-based research. In addition, faculty from various Penn State campuses also gave flash talks about their research with societal impact.
For more information, contact Berks faculty member Ryan Hassler at [email protected].
About the “Food Bank Operations Optimization: Data-driven Societal Impact Approach (FOODSIA)”
Penn State Berks faculty members Abdullah Konak, distinguished professor of information sciences and technology; Sadan Kulturel-Konak, professor of management information systems and the director of the college’s Flemming Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development (CEED) Center; and Ryan Hassler, teaching professor of mathematics, are collaborating with faculty at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT), including Lauren Davis, professor of industrial and systems engineering, and Steven Jiang, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering. The mission is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local food banks. The team received a seed grant to explore this issue from the Penn State Institute for Computational Data Sciences (ICDS) as part of Penn State’s Inter-Institutional Program for Diversifying Research (IPDR).
