Earth Week Featured Alumni

Brooke Bullock, 2015 ENVA alum, Sugar Roots Farm board of directors
Melanie Sferrazza, 2017 ENVA alum, CEA Research

Title: "Turning your passions into a purpose: Innovations in urban farming"

Brooke Bullock & Melanie Sferrazza will discuss urban farming and their professional experience in the field, including applying ecology-based principles to our food systems and controlled environment agriculture.

Brooke is a graduate of Loyola's Envi. Sci Program where she studied insect pollination under the direction of Dr. Thomas. Brooke was the Executive Director of Sugar Roots Farm, a 501(c)(3) teaching farm in Lower Coast Algiers. She helped transform the organization into a community hub centered on food sovereignty and land stewardship.  Sugar Roots provides fresh produce, meat, eggs, honey, and medicinal herbs to the greater New Orleans region. Sugar Roots also diverts thousands of pounds of community waste from landfills each year, and uses it to generate healthy soil. Brooke is excited to continue her work in addressing food & land justice initiatives as a member of Sugar Roots' Board of Directors, and at her new home and farm in Chesterfield, MA.

Melanie Sferrazza graduated Loyola University class of 2017 with a degree in Environmental Science. Working under the wonderful Aimee Thomas, she completed a senior thesis exploring the diets of honey bees. After graduation, Melanie spent over a year working on organic farms ranging from Washington state to different parts of South Africa. Since then, she has gotten involved in the world of CEA in New York City, where her primary focus is bio control and increasing crop yields. In her spare time, Melanie can be found binging true crime podcasts or playing her banjo.