Tufts University
Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
150 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02111
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The Friedman School pursues cutting-edge research and education from cell to society, including in molecular nutrition, human metabolism, population studies, clinical trials, nutrition interventions and behavior change, communication, food systems and sustainability, global food insecurity, humanitarian crises, and food economics and policy.
music festival to raise funds and awareness in support of family farmers and a more resilient food system. As part of the festival, the broadcasting corporation Sirius XM live-streams audio from the show—giving farmers a national platform to share their stories.
At last year’s festival, former Farm Aid staffer Alicia Harvie volunteered to ready farmers for media interviews throughout the day. She coordinated the lineup for Sirius XM and coached farmers on how to tell their stories.
Harvie, A06, N09, couldn’t have been more in her element. Since her days as an undergrad, she’s been involved in agricultural and environmental policy, communications, and activism in one form or another. She also worked at Farm Aid for 11 years, first as a program manager and then as director of advocacy and farmer services, so she “knew the work like the back of my hand.”
Through all of her experiences, she says, one lesson stands out: “You have to balance what can feel like the very technical work of policy advocacy with storytelling and immersive experiences.”
Now, as the head of REI Co-Op’s Cooperative Action Network—which encourages people to take action on climate change, inequities in access to the outdoors, and conservation issues—she regularly considers how to help people see the connections between their personal experiences and their power to create change from the bottom up.
Harvie’s journey toward environmental work began with a road trip that kicked off at 4 a.m. It was the summer of her sophomore year at Tufts and her first day on a new job, working as an assistant to Kathleen Merrigan, then a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She and Merrigan drove from Medford to several farms in Vermont to collect raw milk samples from dairy farmers.
Their study involved interviewing farmers to gather information about the breeds of cows they raised, the number of times per day the cows were milked, whether the animals were artificially inseminated, and what they were fed.
“That got some wheels turning for me,” Harvie says. “I loved talking to the farmers, loved thinking about why they make the choices they do and how they view their own role in stewarding land and animals. I loved hearing their stories about their connection to the land.”
The experience inspired Harvie to write her undergraduate thesis on the ideology of certified organic farmers—a topic that married her two majors, environmental studies and anthropology.
After graduating, she worked in the domestic program at Oxfam America, helping with the effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She loved that work—“I was learning about Indigenous rights, the extractives industry, sustainable agriculture, and economic justice,” she says—but when her former professor, Merrigan, called to tell her a fellowship opportunity had opened up in the Agriculture, Food, and Environment Program at the Friedman School, she knew she had to jump at the chance to pursue it.
At Friedman, Harvie dove deep into studies of food systems and environmental and agricultural science and policy—and that led her to the job with Farm Aid. She helped run the organization’s grant program, supported the division that provides services to farmers, and steered the group’s policy advocacy work.
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The Friedman School pursues cutting-edge research and education from cell to society, including in molecular nutrition, human metabolism, population studies, clinical trials, nutrition interventions and behavior change, communication, food systems and sustainability, global food insecurity, humanitarian crises, and food economics and policy.
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