After graduating from the University of Houston, Ashley Chaifetz worked in electoral politics across the country, including New York, Virginia, Texas, and Oregon, participating in all aspects of the campaign, from organizing to fund-raising to campaign management. In 2005, she earned a Master of Arts in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College; her thesis focused on the community/survival programs of the Black Panther Party. For 5 years, she worked as a high school teacher of U.S. history, government, and economics in New York City.

Ashley’s field of concentration is domestic food and agricultural policy, specifically the policies and regulations centered on food safety and the inequality of goods available to and demanded by socioeconomically diverse communities. As a result, her research focuses on policy issues at the cross-section of food safety and food insecurity; her dissertation is a mixed-methods analysis of emergency food systems in North Carolina.