Center for a Livable Future Announces 2023 CLF-Lerner Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Recipients

Nov 15, 2023

The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) is delighted to announce the awarding of three pre-doctoral fellowships.

The Center for a Livable Future-Lerner Fellowship program was established in 2003 to advance the next generation of food system scholars poised to address the world’s most pressing public health and food systems challenges, and to advance solutions to facilitate meaningful food system change.

The fellowship program is unique within academic public health and has supported the research training and careers of 87 people over the years. It is named to honor public health advocates Helaine and Sid Lerner, whose generous support made it possible to establish the program. 

This year’s new fellows come to the Center with a range of backgrounds in engineering, food and nutrition policy, and the social and behavioral sciences. Their diverse experiences and skill sets align well with the Center’s interdisciplinary and systems-thinking approach to building better food systems and advancing public health.

The 2023-2024 recipients of CLF-Lerner Fellowships are:

• Elizabeth Crespi, MPH, a PhD student in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
• Mei-Li Hey, MEng, a PhD student in in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
• Hyomin Lee, MS, a PhD student in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health and Engineering

“Everyone at CLF is excited to welcome our outstanding new fellows. We are also looking forward to working with Mei-Li, Hyomin and Lizzie in the years ahead to help advance healthy, just, equitable, and sustainable food systems.” says CLF Director Shawn McKenzie.

Prospective Johns Hopkins doctoral students from all university divisions are eligible for the CLF-Lerner Fellowship program. The Center will soon release a request for applications (RFA) for the 2024 fellowship. As part of the RFA, CLF will seek excellent candidates for a new fellowship track named in honor of Steve Wing that will focus on following the principles of community-based participatory research in partnership with community organizations that are addressing the environmental justice and health implications of industrial food animal production. More information about the CLF-Lerner Fellowship can be found on the Center’s website.