My name is Katie Butterfield and I’m a quantitative sociologist interested in research and teaching opportunities in research methods, food systems,
and health disparities. I hold a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Merced, have served as the lead Research Data Analyst for the CalFresh
and Nutrition Branch at the California Department of Social Services for two years, and am currently a postdoctoral scholar in the
Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California, Davis. I have 9+ years of
experience in quantitative and mixed-methods research, including work with experts in the fields of sociology, public health, and human ecology.
My research program addresses social inequalities throughout our food system by asking how and under what conditions sustainable food programs
can improve food access and limit exploitation among disadvantaged populations.
I currently serve as a postdoctoral scholar for the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California, Davis. I work with
Dr. Ryan Galt, and in consultation with USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and
Dr. Houston Wilson from UC ANR Organic Agriculture Institute, to design and implement a
mixed-methods research project exploring organic market data use and needs and current organic product pricing strategies among producers, distributors,
processors, and retailers. We have collected 227 surveys, conducted 26 interviews, completed a preliminary analysis of the data, and drafted a forthcoming
report with initial findings and recommendations for improving USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service Market News organic data. Further analysis and journal
publications on this work will address the role of public sector in supporting organic knowledge, power dynamics among small-scale organic agrifood actors,
and data-informed decision-making in the organic agrifood sector.
At the local level, my research on community gardens across the United States highlights strategies for, and barriers to, supporting community
gardens as participatory food and health resources in Black, Latinx, working-class, and rural communities. My work can help maximize the overall
social equity of local agrifood systems. For example, in “Modeling community garden participation: how locations and frames shape participant demographics”
published in Agriculture and Human Values, I developed a conceptual model
to explain community garden participation as an iterative process of framing, accessibility, and representation, all situated within a garden’s surrounding
community. In “Neighborhood Composition and Community Garden Locations: The Effect of Ethnicity, Income, and Education,” published in
Sociological Perspectives, I provide crucial quantitative metrics suggesting the
diversity of neighborhoods with community gardens and support their inclusion in urban public policy and city planning. In other work co-authored with
public health scholar Dr. Susana Ramírez, “Framing Food Access: Do Community Gardens Inadvertently Reproduce Inequality?,” published in
Health Education and Behavior, findings suggest that community gardens may
be welcoming toward a diversity of participants but still have room to improve the inclusivity of the framing in their mission statements and goals.
As the lead Research Data Analyst for the CalFresh and Nutrition Branch at the California Department of Social Services, I directly
supported leadership in making data-informed decisions about how best to improve equitable access to healthy food among California’s more vulnerable
populations as well as related client outcomes and contractual results. I independently conducted varied research tasks to support data collection
and analysis and compiled, analyzed, and interpreted statewide and county data related to CalFresh program areas. I created reports, summaries, and
visualizations and communicated findings to department and external stakeholders. To assess program effectiveness, I also monitored trends in CalFresh
administrative data and supported the development of complex SQL queries to extract new administrative data measures from one of the largest
automated welfare data system in the world.
As a graduate student at University of California, Merced, I taught several courses including Introduction to Sociology and Statistics for Sociology.
I guided my students through ethnographic and statistical research projects. I presented my work at academic conferences and on-campus workshops aimed
at audiences with varying technical and research backgrounds. I was an active member of the
Communication, Culture, and Health and
Sociology of Health and Equity labs at University of California,
Merced. I also served as co-chair of the California Economists Collective,
and have served on Healthy Campus Network Committee, Sociology Graduate Student Committee, and Graduate Student Association at UC Merced. My work has been supported by the John & Victoria Elia Fellowship, UC Merced Blum Center Seed Grant, and UC Global Food Initiative Fellowship and related Grow Grant.
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