Esther Bowen
Graduate Student
E-mail: eebowen at uchicago.edu
Advisor: Pamela Martin
Research Interests: I am interested in the emerging field of sustainability science with a specific focus on food production systems. I plan to investigate sustainability within the geophysics of food—particularly energy, greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient dynamics in sustainable food production systems.
Current Project: Right now I am working on a study called “Feeding the City” with Pamela Martin to quantify energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from local, sustainable farms. For the 2009 pilot year, we worked with undergraduates to collect energy input and output data for several sustainable produce farms serving the City of Chicago, both urban and rural. From these data, we will derive estimates of energy efficiency and energy-related CO2 emissions for these farms to compare to those of conventional farms. In the future, I plan to quantify additional metrics for these sustainable systems including nutrient flows, water usage, non-energy-related greenhouse gas emissions and geophysical dynamics of farming systems with animals.
To read more about the “Feeding the City” research project, visit our website: feedingthecity.uchicago.edu
