GREAT DECISIONS TOPIC: Global Famine

SPEAKER: Dr. Colleen Hammelman, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Director of the Charlotte Action Research Project at UNC Charlotte

World hunger has galvanized public attention and policymakers for centuries.

While significant political, economic, and technological advances have been made such that the worst cases of widespread hunger (famine) are much less common today; there remain significant, and growing, rates of food insecure people worldwide. Recent geopolitical and environmental challenges are exacerbating hunger and creating new potential for famine.

Drawing on the speaker’s 10+ years of food systems research, this lecture will examine contemporary drivers of hunger and famine and ongoing challenges to meeting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. It will also share current political, economic and technological responses, and innovative solutions that are being pursued across the globe. Famine and world hunger are long-standing and systemic challenges, but significant and promising interventions are being implemented worldwide.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Hammelman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Director of the Charlotte Action Research Project at UNC Charlotte.

Her research and teaching broadly consider questions of social justice in urban food systems across the Americas. In particular, her research focuses on better understanding how migrants create and experience urban places through food relationships in an effort to create a more sustainable and equitable food system.

She has published widely on topics such as food security, urban agriculture, and changing food landscapes, including a 2022 book titled: Greening Cities by Growing Food: A Political Ecology Analysis of Urban Agriculture in the Americas. Before joining UNC Charlotte in 2017, Dr. Hammelman was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto-Scarborough.

She completed her PhD in Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, her MA in International Affairs at American University in Washington, DC, and her BA in Political Science and Technical Journalism at Colorado State University.