Lesli Hoey

Lesli Hoey is an associate professor of urban and regional planning where she serves as director of doctoral studies. She studies grassroots- and government-led efforts to intervene in the public health crisis, environmental degradation, and economic inequities rooted in today’s dominant food system. Focused on policy change, implementation and evaluation, she examines how to ensure that innovative plans, policies and community visions translate into effective, wide-scaled, sustained action. In addition to broader global and US work, much of Dr. Hoey’s research has concentrated on Michigan since 2012 and Bolivia since 2007, places with contrasting contextual factors that affect the emergence and success of food systems planning.

In her current projects, she is examining policy advocacy in Michigan around equitable food access and local food economies and policies in Bolivia focused on food environments and healthy food access. She is also part of action research studying how to transform wastewater infrastructure and create circular nutrient economies through urine-diversion and urine-derived fertilizer, with the potential to impact climate mitigation, contamination of waterways, farmer livelihoods, and affordable housing.

Dr. Hoey has also published on sustainable diets, urban agriculture, land redistribution, collective impact, and multisectoral food policy implementation. Dr. Hoey has also served as an external evaluator on diverse projects, from equity-oriented K-12 and higher education programs in the US; rural development and food security projects in the Mississippi Delta, Peru, Albania and Bolivia; and local food initiatives in Michigan.

Dr. Hoey teaches graduate courses in food systems policy and planning, planning in low-income countries, and program evaluation methods. She earned a doctorate and masters in city and regional planning from Cornell University and bachelors in psychology from Earlham College.