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Kimberley Hodgson, MURP, MS, AICP, RD | Founder and Principal Consultant

Kimberley Hodgson, MURP, MS, AICP, RD is the founder and principal of Cultivating Healthy Places, an international consulting business specializing in community health, social equity and resilient food systems planning. As a certified planner and health professional, her work focuses on conducting policy-relevant research and providing technical assistance to the public and private sectors related to the design and development of healthy, sustainable places.

Since founding Cultivating Healthy Places in 2012, Hodgson has:

served as co-investigator of a $3.96 million grant awarded to the University at Buffalo by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Food Systems Program. The project, Growing Food Connections, generated knowledge about the effectiveness of local and regional government policies in improving food security in underserved communities, strengthening the resilience of rural communities, and supporting the economic viability of food production.
provided guidance to the City of Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas and the City of Vancouver, British Columbia on the development and implementation of local level policies to support and enhance the local food system;
served as an advisor and planning committee member to The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Advancing Obesity Solutions through Investments in the Built Environment and Transportation;
served as an expert advisor to the North Shore Neighborhood House and Vancouver Coastal Health in the development of a food action plan;
co-developed a community agriculture plan for an area in Delta, British Columbia;
researched the management and productive reuse of vacant properties in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cleveland for the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech; and
conducted a healthy aging and built environment policy scan in Vancouver for the Centre for Hip Health & Mobility at the University of British Columbia.

As the former Senior Research Associate and Manager of the Planning and Community Health Research Center at the American Planning Association, Ms. Hodgson managed several national research projects and engaged in multiple outreach and education activities, which focused on the integration of community health issues into contemporary urban and regional planning practice. She was the principal investigator of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research Program grant to identify and analyze municipal comprehensive and sustainability plans from across the United States that explicitly address food access and other food systems issues; and the lead investigator of a Centers for Disease Prevention and Control funded national survey to identify comprehensive plans that explicitly address public health. She is the author of Planning for Food Access and Community-Based Food Systems, co-author of Urban Agriculture: Growing Healthy Sustainable Places and co-author of the Principles of a Healthy, Sustainable Food System. She also served on multiple national advisory committees related to health and the built environment and provided expertise to the First Lady’s Childhood Obesity Prevention Task Force on food systems and food access.

Prior to her work with APA, she assisted in the development of the City of Alexandria’s sustainability vision and plan, providing the City with expertise in community health, active living and food systems. She has also worked extensively in the research, development and implementation of a variety of food policy and nutrition programs targeting youth and young adults in New York City, Boston and Southwest Virginia—farm to school, school wellness policy, nutrition education, nutrition communication, and health promotion.

Ms. Hodgson is the Chair of the American Planning Association’s Food Systems Planning Interest Group, a member of the American Planning Association’s Healthy Communities Interest Group, and member of the Vancouver Food Policy Council.

She holds an undergraduate degree from New York University in pre-medicine, a Master of Science in food policy and applied nutrition from Tufts University, and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning with a specialization in community health and sustainability from Virginia Tech. She is also a certified planner and registered dietitian.

For a list of current and past projects, presentations, and publications, and a copy of her resume, click here.

Tara Moreau, PhD | Collaborator

Dr. Moreau is a sustainable agriculture scientist. Over the past decade, her research has focused on the science, planning, and policy of sustainable food systems. As the sole proprietor of Grow Moreau, her expertise around climate change, urban agriculture and integrated pest management give her a diverse background into the implementation of sustainable agriculture and food systems. Dr. Moreau recently completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions where she developed a guide to address climate change for urban and peri-urban agriculture, led instructional workshops for small-scale producers, and published scientific papers on greenhouse gas mitigation within British Columbia’s agriculture sector. Dr. Moreau currently sits on the Vancouver Food Policy Council and works as a consultant with the United Nations – Food and Agriculture Organization. She completed a PhD in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia where she evaluated alternative pest controls for whiteflies in collaboration with the BC Greenhouse Growers’ Association. She obtained a Master of Science from Dalhousie University and the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada.

Andrea Procyk Cornborough, MA | Collaborator

Zsuzsi Fodor, MA | Collaborator

Cultivating Healthy Places

community health, social equity, and resilient food systems

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