A.L. Anderson-Lazo Email & Phone Number

Washington Dc-Baltimore Area

Washington Dc-Baltimore Area

My primary role is to assist Coalition members with research and evaluation. Employing a participatory and collaborative approach involves ensuring that we can make use of the data we collect and apply what we learn together about the opportunities and challenges for producers, farmworkers and communities through knowledge sharing, policy and social change.

Greater San Diego Area

My consultancy has focused on helping nonprofit organizations to develop participatory research and evaluation (PR/E) models and to use qualitative research approaches focused on stories and storytelling to link organizing with authentic community engagement and leadership development. I have consulted with the People's Produce Project in San Diego; Rural Coalition in Washington, DC.; and the Community Food and Justice Coalition in Oakland developing participatory models for evaluation and community food stories projects.

As the UCSD Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Minority and Health Disparities, I conducted a two year community-based participatory research project entitled “Foodways and Foodscapes: A Community Food Stories Project about Health, Prosperity and Empowerment in San Diego.” This research added precision and depth to current understandings of community-based participatory research models for reducing health disparities in socio-economically disadvantaged, ethnic and minority communities by linking collaborative ethnography, resident participation in community health initiatives in San Diego neighborhoods, and a social history of community mobilization, (re)development and planning, and economic recovery efforts in these communities over the last two decades. Forging a community/university partnership and research collective, residents, organizational representatives, researchers and students collaborated as co-researchers, learned interdisciplinary social science methods, and created tools to analyze and communicate data pertinent to food system change through stories and maps. One of several products of Co/LAB research/organizing, the “Good Food Legacies” video-narrative, can be viewed on the project website http://foodwaysandfoodscapes.org/This study was supported by the UC San Diego Center for Global California Studies and the Comprehensive Research Center in Health Disparities, Grant Number 5 P60 MD 000220 from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health.

Executive Director Led start-up, nonprofit organization to define education and civic engagement focus to complement the work of two sister organizations, Progressive San Diego political action committee and 501(c)4. See http://www.empowersandiego.org. Contribution highlights:- Organizational Development - Worked with trustees to finalize bylaws, conduct strategic planning, refine mission and vision, and create strategic plan, work plan, and budgets.- Communications- created new programs, campaigns, revamped website, bi-weekly civic participation e-newsletters, and promotional content. - Fundraising - Created content for grants, supervised development director and volunteers, and secured FY2010 funding from local community foundations to fund a half-time program coordinator.- Leadership - In addition to supervising the development director, voluntary committees and working with an activist board, I created Empower's signature intern program, which became its strongest program and a model for other organizations.

• Writing, research & grants-development. • Project/program/campaign and organizational development.• Editorial services for professional writers, web developers & organizations. • Event planning and sustainable catering.

(Bilingual) Coordinated advocacy efforts among five faith-based organizing units to improve neighborhoods & address community concerns throughout San Diego in membership organization of 42,000 families. See http://www.sdop.net/

Developed funding portfolio for a social justice organization that promotes and facilitates the development of an active, interrelated, progressive community in San Diego through networking, culture and electronic technology. See http://www.activistsandiego.org/

Ph.D., Anthropology

M.A., Anthropology

B.A., Anthropology, Human Biology