Advisory Committee
Alexander F. Day
Professor, History & Asian Studies
B.A. Colby College; M.A., Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz
Alexander Day studies the intellectual, social, and cultural history of peasants, food, and agrarian change in China. He teaches Chinese, East Asian, and world history. Read his Oxy Story profile.
John T. Lang
Associate Professor, Sociology
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Rutgers University
John Lang is deeply interested in food as a site for sociological exploration.
Carmel Levitan
Professor, Cognitive Science
B.A., Stanford University; Ph.D., UC Berkeley
Carmel Levitan studies multisensory interactions, researching how the different senses integrate information.
Affiliated Faculty
Sharon Cech
Visiting Instructor, Urban & Environmental Policy
B.A., Bard College; M.A., UCLA
Sharon Cech (she/her) is a Program Director at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College (UEPI). With over a decade of experience working to advance farm to school, farmers…
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa
Associate Professor, Religious Studies & Asian Studies
B.A., Victoria University of Wellington; Ph.D., Australian National University
Areas of specialization: Buddhism in Tibet, the East and South Asian Himalayas, and beyond.
Andrew Jalil
Associate Professor, Economics
A.B.; Sc.B. Brown University; Ph.D. UC Berkeley
Andrew Jalil is an economist, whose research is in two distinct areas: (1) macroeconomic history (financial crises, monetary and fiscal policy, the Great Depression) and (2) food policy (health, sustainability).
Martha Matsuoka
Professor, Urban and Environmental Policy; Executive Director, Urban & Environmental Policy Institute
A.B., Occidental College; M.C.P., UC Berkeley Ph.D., UCLA
Martha Matsuoka ’83 focuses her teaching and research on community-based organizing and social movements for environmental justice, particularly in planning and policy.
Clair Morrissey
Professor, Philosophy
B.A., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Clair Morrissey is a moral philosopher who specializes in practical ethics and political philosophy.
Karla Peña
Assistant Professor, Urban & Environmental Policy
B.A., California State University Northridge; M.S., University of Michigan; M.S., Ph.D., Cornell University
Karla Peña's teaching and research is centered on social movements and the political ecology of natural resource extraction and environmental change, from a local and global perspective.
Rosa Romero
Visiting Instructor, Urban & Environmental Policy
B.A., University of California, Los Angeles; M.Ed., University of Hawaii, Manoa
Rosa Romero is a Program Director at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) at Occidental College. Rosa specializes in Farm to Preschool, Garden and Health curriculum development and…
Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr.
Associate Professor, Philosophy
B.A., Pitzer College; M.A., P.h.D., U.C. Riverside
Robert Sanchez specializes in Mexican/Latinx/Latin American philosophy, as well as existentialism, and he has interests in the philosophy of race, the philosophy of food, and the history of philosophy. He co-hosts a blog on Mexican philosophy.
Derek Shearer
Stuart Chevalier Professor, Diplomat in Residence, Diplomacy and World Affairs
BA, Yale University; PhD, The Union Graduate School
Ambassador Shearer serves as Director of the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs, handling the college's international relations and directing the expansion of its international affairs programs.