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What is food justice?

Class of 2020 alumna Alia Bly continues to excel as she settles into her first year at Oxford College at Emory University. 

Bly, majoring in human health with a minor in predictive health, intends to focus on epidemiological study and public health. 

After starting college during a pandemic, Bly says she never expected the first steps of her scientific career to take place over Zoom.

“I’m grateful to the Emory community for helping me develop my passions despite the external stress of the pandemic,” she says. 

Bly, passionate about research, was accepted to the Emory University Food Recovery Network’s Research Digest Program, a student-directed research group raising awareness for issues related to food justice.

Working with mentor Antara Palkar and peers to develop an independent research study, she invested in honing her research skills. 

She presented a study “Disparate Rates of Exposure to Microbial Foodborne Illnesses in Food Insecure Communities” at a symposium in early January. 

The study examined the relationship between levels of exposure to deleterious microbes like salmonella, listeria and campylobacter and the perpetuation of food insecurity in areas of low socioeconomic status, Bly said. 

The symposium was partially directed by Dr. Stacy Lindau and the Lindau Lab, a lab group based at the University of Chicago. Dr. Lindau is a leader in the fields of food justice and integrative medicine, and she served as the keynote speaker prior to the presentation of student research, Bly says. 

“Overall, my experiences allowed me to observe the process of research in a new light, and I pushed myself to overcome a variety of obstacles indicative of building a scientific study,” Bly says.

The ambitious college student is also a staff writer for SciOx, a student-led undergraduate research journal sponsored by Emory University. She is authoring two articles to be published later this year as follows: 

- “Quantum Computing and Healthcare: Connecting Humanity and Technology,” discussing the potential impacts of utilizing technology as a means of reforming healthcare and medicinal design and distribution. 

- “Meningitis Malpractice: The Detriments of Delayed Diagnosis,” discussing the rates of misdiagnosis of meningitis and the outstanding impact they have on the effectiveness of subsequent treatment.