Hi! I am Marisela Chávez, a food systems and environmental justice educator, consultant, and artist from San Fernando Valley, CA. I earned a PhD in Forest and Conservation Sciences with a certificate in Water-Energy-Food Nexus at the University of Montana in the Dept. of Society and Conservation. Prior to that, I completed an M.A. in Latin American & Caribbean Studies at the University of Kansas, and received a B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with a major in Spanish, a minor in Global Studies, and a certificate in Latin American & Caribbean Studies.

I grew up cooking. Some of my earliest memories involve stuffing poblano peppers with cheese for one of my favorite meals, chiles rellenos. When we visited family in Colima, Jalisco, and Michoacán, I would often plant myself in front of the comal, the clay griddle, to observe my grandmothers and my aunts make tortillas. Outside of the kitchen, I practiced grinding leaves, flower buds, and whatever else I could find with stones to make “salsas” for mud tacos. But it wasn’t until much later that I developed a deep appreciation for my food heritage. When I stepped away from my own culture for the first time, I was able to truly understand the richness of the culinary traditions that I had been exposed to since I was a child. Nostalgia is incredibly powerful, and when I found myself so far away from the tortillas, chiles, and nopales that were a staple in my life, I began finding ways to embrace and celebrate the foods that were important to me, and to better understand the systems they were embedded in. This came at a time when I started transitioning from arts-based work with Latinx youth to environmental conservation. In this way, my connection with ancestral foods converged with a shift towards better understanding human-environment relationships. This has led me to spend a great deal of time thinking about the spaces where food is produced, and foodways practices as locations where individuals and communities perpetuate biocultural practices, as well as negotiate with (and push back on) dominant power structures.

Outside of academia, I love all things nature and outdoor recreation as much as I love storytelling and Mexican folkloric dance--these are all activities that have grounded me since I was a child, and that have provided me with opportunities to connect to and claim my heritage. I dabble in printmaking, painting, photography, embroidery, clay, gardening, and cooking as creative outlets.