For Samina Raja and members of the Food Lab at UB, food systems planning is a pursuit of equity and social justice for the people who have long been disenfranchised by traditional planning—the poor, people of color, immigrants and refugees.

UB’s Community for Global Health Equity (CGHE) has announced the winning research teams from its inaugural Ideas Lab workshop — “Seeding Food Equity for Global Health” (FEIL) — which was held in late January.

Events range from a talk addressing malnutrition among children in developing countries, to hosting leaders from across the Western Hemisphere for the biennial meeting of the Interamerican Network for Healthy Habitats.

john powell, director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, is a legal scholar and internationally recognized thought leader on questions of race, equity and social justice. He will visit UB Feb. 6-10, 2017, as the Will and Nan Clarkson Chair in Planning.

Civil rights leader Shirley Sherrod shared her powerful message of hope and resiliency amid overwhelming obstacles as part of a food justice event organized this week by the Food Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning.

UB will invest $25 million in a major multi-disciplinary research initiative to confront grand challenges facing humankind. School of Architecture and Planning faculty members are the forefront of two of these 'Communities of Excellence': Global Halth Equity and SMART (Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotic Technologies).