Title: Graduate Student Communication and Outreach Fellow

Bio: Justice Madden is a master’s student in the Department of Agricultural Leadership and Community Education at Virginia Tech. Justice’s work is inspired and illuminated by the legacy of revolutionary Black activists who view healing, nourishment, and liberation through the land-based practices. Drawing on the framework of the Black radical imagination, her research focuses on the narratives of Black seed keepers in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. This project explores stories of seed acts as a blueprint to transform, contest, and (re)imagine plantation sites. In her current role as Communications and Outreach Graduate fellow, Justice amplifies the Center’s critical food systems discussion through digital storytelling approaches. In her free time, she is passionate about deepening her yoga practice, growing herbal medicine, and outsmarting her two terriers.

Areas of Emphasis: Food sovereignty, Black food geographies, Seed keeping, Storytelling, Social movements, Community food systems

Education:  B.S. Sociology/Media Studies, University of Virginia