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Dear Community,
Our 2026 Food as Medicine For All - Livestream Conference is just over a month away, and we are honored to continue our Speaker Spotlight series by introducing Katarzyna “Kasia” Michalik. With experience spanning healthcare, sustainability, food systems, and community-based research, Kasia brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Her session invites us to look beyond traditional approaches to food and health and consider the knowledge, stories, and lived experiences that shape how communities understand healing.
Food as Medicine: Whose Knowledge Counts?
As food-as-medicine programs expand, whose knowledge shapes how we understand food, health, and healing? This session explores the relationship between clinical approaches and the food knowledge held within families, cultures, Indigenous communities, and local communities. Through storytelling, personal reflection, and facilitated conversation, participants will consider questions of knowledge, access, cultural relevance, dignity, and community partnership—and reflect on how we might listen more deeply to the people and communities at the heart of food-as-medicine work.
Speaker Spotlight: Katarzyna Michalik, PhD Student
Kasia Michalik is a PhD candidate in Sustainability Education at Prescott College, where her research explores how communities use local food knowledge, storytelling, and everyday food practices to navigate health, food injustice, and a changing climate. She is the interim co-chair of the Arizona Food Systems Network’s Food Access Community of Practice and works alongside local farmers, food producers, educators, and community organizations to strengthen connections between food, health, and community. Her background spans 15 years in healthcare, sustainability, journalism, and public health communication, including grant-funded program management and food-systems reporting. She writes Seeds of Health and Hope, rooted in the food wisdom, stories, and traditions of her grandmother’s kitchen in communist-era Poland.
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