Dr. Jordan Blekking

Teaching and Research Interests:  food accessibility, food security, food environments, food systems, human-environmental interactions, spatial analysis, geographic information science.

Broadly, I am interested in human-environmental interactions and how these interactions are linked to social-spatial inequalities, which shape livelihood and wellbeing outcomes, like food security. Nearly all of my research involves partnering with on-the-ground practitioners, and I tend to use geospatial and statistical methods. Currently, I am working on three main projects. 

1. In a project I am currently leading, I am investigating how urban food retailers mitigate or contribute to climate change vulnerabilities and food accessibility as African cities rapidly grow. In this project I use remotely sensed population and environmental data and spatial-temporal analysis to identify patterns of inequitable food access and food retailer development. This project currently focuses on Lusaka, Zambia, but in the next two years it will expand, in partnership with local NGOs, to other large Southern African cities.

2. I am currently partnering with researchers from Cornell University, the Soils, Food, and Healthy Communities organization, (a Malawian NGO), and local farmers on the Agile4Climate project. Using participatory research methods, this project seeks to strengthen climate resilience in rural Malawian communities, by understanding how smallholder farmers receive and understand weather information. As part of this project I installed multiple weather stations in four local communities. The weather information provided by these weather stations is available for community members to use when making important cropping decisions, like what seeds to plant and when to plant. 

3. In collaboration with researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, I am conducting geospatial research on the availability and accessibility of healthy, nutritious foods provided by corner stores across the United States. We specifically focus on corner stores in this research because food access in the United States is generally associated with the presence of supermarkets and large grocery stores, but our initial results show that corner stores can and do provide healthy foods, in certain circumstances.

I earned my Ph.D. in Geography from Indiana University in 2022. My doctorate focused on how rapid urbanization in Southern African cities impacts the development of food retail environments and urban food systems. I earned a Master of Science in Geography from Indiana University, a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and Applications from Michigan State University, and an Associates of Arts from Kellogg Community College. I served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia from 2012 to 2015, and I have conducted research in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia.

Recent Publications