Katherine Ament thinks a lot about food.

More specifically, she thinks about ensuring that everyone has access to food and healthy food choices.

“Food is something that everyone connects with,” said Ament. “When I arrived at Temple, it wasn’t long before I joined the Temple community garden, which really opened my eyes to urban agriculture and food justice in Philadelphia.”

At Temple, Ament, a Diamond Research Scholar and Honors student with a 3.9 GPA, set out to explore food justice issues in every way possible. She served as president of the Temple Community Garden, interned at Nice Roots Farm in Philadelphia and worked as the outreach assistant in Temple’s Office of Sustainability. Her research project “Exploring the Food Hub Network of Philadelphia” won the Temple University Library Prize for Undergraduate Research for Sustainability.

Ament is also among the first students to complete Temple’s minor in sustainable food systems, offered through the School of Environmental Design.

“With food systems, what’s interesting is that you are looking at so many issues—labor, the environment, community—through the lens of food,” she said.

Applying the knowledge she gained while at Temple, Ament has been working as the food systems intern for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, creating a complete “data snapshot” of the state of farming in a nine-county region.

“When I studied food systems in the region, everything seemed to be happening in separate ‘silos,’ not enough people were talking to each other. There needs to be a synthesis between programs and efforts to ensure food availability and food justice,” Ament said. “(Temple’s) been able to achieve that on campus with the Green Council, which brings together all of the university’s environmentally focused student groups—we’ve been able to build momentum toward positive change.”

While at Temple, Ament helped to develop the Rad Dish Co-op Café, an entirely student-governed and -operated vegetarian café, located in Ritter Annex.

“The idea was to start a café that used only locally, organically, humanely raised and grown foods,” she said. “It was very interesting—and stressful—to see this all come together, and we were able to do it in just two years.”

When she’s not in the classroom or involved in any number of food-system projects, Ament can be found foraging in one of Philadelphia’s parks. She’s a member of Wild Foodies of Philly, one of the largest “wild edibles” foraging and education groups in the world.

“You very quickly realize that all of those plants you tend to ignore when you’re just getting from place to place are definitely not useless,” she said. “These are natural food sources and sources for culinary and medicinal herbs. There’s a great element of the unknown and discovery that goes into it—you never know what you’ll discover.”

Ament, who will begin an internship directly following graduation at the Burpee Seed Company Trial Gardens in Doylestown, ultimately wants a career in urban agriculture.

“Urban agriculture can serve as a means for community organizing,” she said. “It’s beneficial in revitalizing neighborhoods, improving green spaces and food security.”

- Jim Duffy