About Us
Meet the team behind Food Systems Collaborative Community
Finding your role within food systems can feel like searching for an elusive, perfectly ripe avocado! We confronted the same challenges you face in leveraging our education and knowledge from past experiences to solidify a professional network. Our own career paths thus far include digging deep in garden beds searching for worms with students, evaluating WIC COVID waivers, championing zero food waste policies, and convening roundtables with CEOs from major companies.
We have seen how varied and unique each role within the food system can be, often custom-curated for one organization at a time. This space has its own language and many exciting possible trajectories, with new careers popping up daily! But when you pivot to a new role or expand your portfolio, it often feels like you have to re-invent your network. Our inspiration comes from the very real need to untangle the conflux of food systems, public health, and social impact to create opportunities within them.
We created Food Systems Collaborative Community to help you evolve a successful career in food systems and make sure you're not going at it alone! Join us as we build a community of leaders creating a more equitable, nourishing, and resilient food system.
Founders
Athena Rae Roesler
Athena Rae Roesler is the co-founder of Food Systems Collaborative Community, a community hub for all leaders building a better food system. She is also an associate director at the Milken Institute Center for Public Health where her work champions and evaluates public health policies, solutions, and partnerships to build a more equitable world. Some of her current projects include scaling Food is Medicine interventions, public health policy advocacy, and systems change approaches for employers to address mental health in the workplace. Roesler previously led a partnership with the DC government leveraging food procurement to support nutrition, the environment, and equitable local economies.
Roesler’s experience in public health started literally from the ground up, teaching farm-based nutrition to thousands of students across Arizona, Washington, DC, and South India. She was part of a research team evaluating California’s sugary drink tax and warning label policies. At Leah’s Pantry, a nonprofit supporting California SNAP-Ed, she furthered behavioral economics-based and trauma-informed nutrition security initiatives. Her graduate research centered on the human right to food, a dignified emergency food system, and strategies to reduce health disparities. Roesler holds a Master of Public Health in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in public health and educational studies from American University.
Niyeti Shah
Niyeti Shah the co-founder of Food Systems Collaborative Community, a community hub for all leaders building a better food system. She also founded the Food Systems Collaborative, a consultancy offering services at the intersection of social impact, food systems and food policy. Before founding Food Systems Collaborative, Niyeti led social impact at WeightWatchers International. In this role, Niyeti led a coalition of 70+ organizations to introduce, advocate for, and pass the Food Donation Improvement Act, launched WW’s first annual grant program, and piloted their first food is health pilot program.
Previously, Niyeti was an Associate Director at the Milken Institute’s Center for Public Health, leading the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative focusing on food procurement policy and improving access to WIC. During her career in food systems Niyeti has worked on food access, federal nutrition programs, and program management with various organizations including Partnership for a Healthier America, Food Research and Action Center, the National WIC Association, and the BlinkNow Foundation in Surkhet, Nepal. Her graduate research focused on the DC WIC Expansion Act of 2018, comparing the impact of vendor eligibility criteria on participant/vendor ratios across states. Niyeti received her bachelor of arts in human health from Emory University and her master of public health in public health nutrition from George Washington University.
Contact us.
info@fsccommunity.com