Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fellow Elizabeth Schiffler serves up performance art dining experience with ‘Imagine Dinner’

A doctoral student in Theater and Performance Studies at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fellow Elizabeth Schiffler is blending her love for food and performance by spending her days thinking about the role of storytelling in food equity, sustainability and systems thinking. Her efforts are not going unnoticed.

Schiffler has been partnered with the new Los Angeles County Food Equity Roundtable to execute the broader plan around her winning proposal. “Imagine Dinner” is an artistic cookbook that instructs educators and nonprofit programmers to create an immersive performance art dining experience. It features recovered food in mouthwatering recipes created by three L.A.-based chefs who put creativity and storytelling at the forefront of their work.

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Now taking applications for the

Undergraduate Research Scholars Program!

The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications to our Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) for the 2023–24 academic year. We are seeking undergraduate students who are eager to make a lasting difference in Los Angeles and beyond through their commitment to sustainability.

Founded in 2014, URSP is an intensive and highly competitive interdisciplinary program. It unites undergraduates in their first research experiences in the field of sustainability from a multitude of perspectives including arts, humanities, public policy, science, engineering and more. The program is designed to provide early intervention — exposing students to urban sustainability challenges and interdisciplinary research approaches necessary to overcome these complex problems. June 17, 2023 is the deadline!

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How does your garden grow? Interim Director Alex Hall’s work with native plants is in full bloom

The home garden of Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Interim Director Alex Hall was featured as part of the Theodore Payne Foundation’s 20th anniversary Native Garden Tour. Hall has been developing his sustainability demonstration garden for about eight years. It incorporates large spaces devoted to native plants.

In addition, there is a five-episode podcast featuring a conversation between Hall and Evan Meyer, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, around the topics of building of a garden, water conservation and habitat restoration in urban Los Angeles.

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