Methods: digital surveys, public outreach, data analytics, empirical field research (compositional analysis)

In May 2025, Hennepin County released its Wasted Food Prevention Plan, outlining an ambitious target to cut discarded edible food from both the residential and commercial sectors in half. According to the literature, schools represent a strategic leverage point in waste reduction and organics recovery. In 2019, an estimated 4.9 billion lunches and 2.5 billion breakfasts were served, and nearly one-third of all whole produce and fresh milk were thrown out in the United States. To address this, Hennepin County launched a two-part research effort to benchmark existing practices in school cafeterias against ideal waste prevention standards across literature. Results of the research effort would serve as a starting point for upholding similar standards in the county to effectively transition the county school system to a zero-waste future.

To help Hennepin County establish evidence-based standards for preventing food waste in K–12 schools, I translated national best-practice research into a stakeholder-driven study spanning 384 public, private, and charter schools. Working with county experts, I used power mapping to identify three groups with complementary influence over school food systems (district administrators, food service managers, and custodial leads) and developed tailored questionnaires to understand both policy-level decisions and the realities of cafeteria implementation. Following expert validation and stakeholder piloting, I led a three-month, multi-channel outreach strategy to assess current practices and identify opportunities to strengthen food waste prevention across the county.

Methods: Participatory Action Research (PAR), service design, co-design, grounded theory.

Launched in 2022, the GroundBreak Coalition, a Minneapolis-based initiative of over 40 private, public, and philanthropic partners, seeks to mobilize a systemic capital shift and build Black wealth. Today, the GroundBreak Coalition is slated to scale its model and direct $5B in community investment by 2034. The significant efforts of the collectively-owned strategy to revolutionize wealth distribution in the Upper Midwest was featured in Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Winter 2025 cover story as an exemplary case of civic innovation in finance.

I, as part of the diligent team of strategists at Imagine Deliver, supported pathways leading to the initial $1B financial commitment in 2023. Using my experience in environmental and service design, my series of artifacts set the tone and framework to consistently center the northstar vision for the financial prototypes, grounding research and insights most important to the effort.

Methods: ethnographic research (semi-structured interviews, focus groups), workshops, co-design, participatory action research (PAR)

Born out of 2023 legislative decision, the Minnesota Office of Addiction and Recovery (OAR) sought to address barriers across the continuum of care for vulerable Minnesotans experiencing substance-use disorder. In 2021, nearly 1,300 Minnesotans died from drug overdoses, more than twice the number recorded just three years earlier. These losses disproportionately affect communities already facing systemic barriers: Native Minnesotans are more than nine times as likely to die from an overdose, while Black Minnesotans are more than three times as likely as white Minnesotans, with consequences affecting families, young people, and children across the state.

When the OAR partnered with Imagine Deliver to co-create its inaugural strategic plan and define its priorities, I worked alongside a dedicated team of strategists to help translate that vision into an actionable path forward. The work extended beyond ideation, informing continued engagement with Tribal and urban Native communities and Minnesota’s American-born Black community, as well as OAR’s work with the Governor’s Advisory Council to advance background studies reform. Our recommendation for more flexible funding was also elevated at the American Indian SUD Summit and began making its way into legislative proposals, demonstrating how co-created strategies can move from community insight toward systems-level change.