Jennifer Nicklay is working to use the data gathered from grower science to support grower relationships and advocate for system changes.

As a community scientist standing with urban growers in Minneapolis/St. Paul, my research focuses on integrating grower knowledge and science to both support their growing practices AND advocate for policy/systems change. During my time as a Human in the Data fellow, I will work with growers to design Community Land and Food Gatherings that create space for grower, elder, youth, and organizer knowledge to be in conversation with soil, water, and biodiversity data. The goal of this work is to center the relationships between people and the more-than-human in our understanding of what is data, who generates it, and how it's used. We plan to hold these gatherings regularly for the next two years, and I am especially grateful for the Fellowship support at this moment while my collaborative group works to also leverage these gatherings for anti-racism organizing in the context of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd.