Anitra Conover Email & Phone Number

Saint Paul, Mn, Us

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

Meridian Institute is a mission-driven, nonprofit consultancy that helps diverse stakeholders build understanding, while guiding collaboration and driving action around challenging environmental and social issues.The AGree Coalition: a bipartisan alliance transforming food & ag policy• Supported the design and coordination of in-person Coalition meetings, which propose bipartisan, science-based policy to bolster conservation outcomes and farm profitability in the US. Topics included agricultural data, crop insurance, and diversified farming systems.• Created and revised workplans for the climate policy and crop insurance working groups.• Monitored bills relevant to the Coalition’s key subject areas, including legislation that received Coalition endorsement.• Managed key communications with USDA leadership, including the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and the Federal Crop Insurance Board.Additional convenings• Coordinated a full-day closed meeting for representatives at USDA and White House Climate Policy Office to discuss climate disclosure with representatives from food and beverage companies. Attendees engaged in the discussion through open Q&A sessions and curated roundtable dialogues.• Supported a full-day strategy meeting with 13+ funders representing family foundations, NGOs, and government agencies. Attendees planned a field visit, adjusted the council's approach to member engagement, and set new priorities for the next grant cycle.

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

Burlington, Vermont, United States

Much like the Peace Corps sends its members across the the world for a year of community service, AmeriCorps VISTA sends its members across the U.S. to expand community partners' poverty alleviation programs. My service consisted of three main responsibilities• Supported the City of Winooski’s community gardening program, which included a network of 160+ plots cultivated by 50+ gardeners, many of whom were New Americans, across 6 separate sites. Duties included registering new gardeners, tagging assigned plots, digitizing garden maps, and repairing garden beds• Organized online registration portals and secure eight speakers for the Great Decisions program, where diplomats, authors, and academics were invited to discuss articles published by the Foreign Policy Association with local community members. • Supported International Visitor Programs in collaboration with the U.S Department of State

Commercial agricultural operations and agricultural researchers from across Northern New England send soil/water/plant tissue samples to UVM Extension's Agricultural and Environmental Testing Lab (AETL)• Prepared plant matter samples for total carbon and total nitrogen analysis• Tested water samples for total suspended solids as well as total nitrogen• Tested soil samples for both organic matter and nitrate

For this analysis of nationwide phosphorus data, I replicated the methodology from my supervisor's previous study where he identified nitrogen runoff hotspots across the U.S.• Used R and Excel to analyze county-by-county NuGIS data on phosphorus use across the US• Identified key phosphorus runoff hotspots, breakpoints, and linear correlations both above and below break points

Under the guidance of Pablo Bose, the head of UVM’s Global Studies program, my responsibilities as a researcher include• Consulted data from previous studies in order to write, review, and present a publication informing food providers how to make their programming more successful with New American participants. Aspects under consideration included communication, culturally preferred foods, and dietary health conditions• Wrote a $20,000 grant proposal on behalf of AALV so that it can continue its pandemic-response food delivery program. The proposal was submitted in June and approved in July• Managed a research assistant

Burlington, Vermont, United States

As a research assistant to Pablo Bose, the head of UVM's Global Studies Program, I executed two tasks• Analyzed survey data from 200 participants in the New American community and drafted a summary of the survey findings (This report investigates how COVID-19 impacted food security in Vermont’s New American communities)• Wrote a food security survey, translated the survey into Spanish, conducted over-the-phone interviews in Spanish, and drafted a report that includes survey findings as well as a set of recommendations (The purpose of this research was go gauge whether the Vermont Foodbank should continue supporting its food box delivery program for migrant farmworkers after the pandemic has ended)

Burlington, Vermont, United States

After interning at the main office, AALV transferred me to the food security branch, which is called New Farms for New Americans.• Created a polished draft of the NFNA Food Guide for New Americans in the Greater Burlington Area. I structured, researched, edited, and set up a review process for this food guide, which is modeled after the “Food Resources in Ithaca” guide for immigrants and international newcomers. Unlike the Ithaca publication, this food guide includes more information on subsistence gardening / household food management, and it is split into three publications offered at three different stages of resettlement to ensure that food security programming is incorporated into both the immediate and the long-term resettlement process. After refining the food guide’s design and content, I presented it to the project’s funding entity and potential providers who would be using the publications in their office and/or distributing them to clients• Completed a meta-analysis of food security surveys conducted among New Americans in the Greater Burlington Area during COVID-19. This meta-analysis visualizes four existing surveys' content and overlap so that future investigators do not reiterate specific questions in their surveys. Instead, they can request other researchers’ data in order to optimize their own efficiency and ensure that New Americans do not become frustrated and/or less willing to participate in surveys

Burlington, Vermont, United States

• Conducted interviews and a survey for an internal evaluation of the interpreting services program. This report was later reworked into a more formal publication available to AALV's partners• Researched food preservation traditions, particularly fermentation methods, in Burundi, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, and Congo for an informal report on how local food banks can alter their shelf-stable offerings to better meet New Americans' needs

I compiled a literature review for my supervisor's paper on international disaster management. His paper will summarize a series of core competencies required for managing various chronic and acute disasters at the prevention, mitigation, and relief stage. It will develop into the backbone of a new graduate curriculum on global disaster management. The sources I collected focus almost exclusively on Chinese institutions and research regarding China's disaster management policy. I used the sources I had collected to create a prototype of my supervisor's final paper. At the end of the summer, my supervisor could pick and choose the most relevant elements from my prototype to incorporate into his final paper.

Bachelor'S Degree, Global Studies

Area of Focus: International Food Politics, Agrarian Policy, and Sustainable Food Security Minors: Mandarin Chinese, Economics, and Soil.

Chinese Language

I attended an international school in Beijing, China to become fluent in Mandarin Chinese and experience cultural immersion. Along.