Biographical Statement: Dr. Ardyth Gillespie achieves her mission of creating learning environments to expand human potential through the integration of research, education, and extension/outreach. The long-term goal of her scholarly activities is to improve the health and well-being of children/youth and their families through transdisciplinary research, co-learning, and co-creation. To achieve this goal, she has developed the Collaborative Engaged Research (CER) methodology in collaboration with scholars, change agents, and community food system stakeholders. CER engages people in creating personal, family, and community change through collaborative leadership to build capacity for sustainable improvements in family and community food decision-making. The development and application of CER is shifting the paradigm for Community Nutrition research toward more engagement of food system stakeholders and change agents in identifying priority research questions, sharing leadership and decision-making, and interpreting and applying findings within their particular community context. Through CER, Gillespie and colleagues, study family food decision-making systems, family dynamics and interactions with social and biophysical ecosystems.
Courses Taught:
NS 401 Empirical Research NS 402 Supervised Fieldwork NS 400 Directed Readings NS 644 Community Nutrition Research Seminar NS 660 Special Topics in Nutrition - Research Methodologies and Conceptualizations of Community Nutrition
Current Professional Activities:
Cornell Graduate Field Membership: Nutrition
Division Extension Leader, Nutritional Sciences
Fellow, Leadership Institute of the Kappa Omicron Nu honorary Society
President, Society for Nutrition Education Foundation
Family and Community Food Decision-making Program leadership
Society for Nutrition Education Board of Directors
Council on Agriculture, Science, and Technology (CAST) Board of Directors
American Society for Nutritional Sciences
American Dietetics Association
Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society
American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
Current Research Activities: Gillespie pursues three overlapping and mutually supportive areas of engaged research: food decision-making with an ecosystems perspective, community leadership capacity, and developing engaged methodology. In collaboration with social scientists and community-based partners, Gillespie is studying components of the family food decision-making system. She has developed a conceptual framework which describes the pathways and critical decision-junctures and impetuses for engaging in rethinking eating practices and food choices. She is currently studying family dynamics of the system including food and eating roles and interactions. Other areas of interest are understanding the impetuses to rethinking eating practices and food choices, i.e. engage in a thought decision-making pathway and the transition in this pathway from behavioral intention to implementation. She has recently presented the Family Food Decision-making System Framework at the NIH conference on Decision-making in Eating Behavior, the invitational workshop on social science and obesity for the National Institute for Child Health and Development, NIH, and the national meeting of researchers and extension faculty at the 1890 colleges. She is contributing a chapter on An Ecosystems Approach to Food Decision-making for the NC-1033 multi-state project book on differential access to food and its impact on health and well-being. Through leadership development projects, Gillespie studies leadership develop and principles and strategies for collaborative leadership. She is collaborating with Cornell Cooperative Extension leaders in four counties to study Leadership Capacity for Community Food System Collaborations. Gillespies focus on developing community engaged research (CER) methodologies supports her mission as well as her other two areas of scholarship (food decision-making and leadership development). Engaged research emphasizes methods for the collaborative generation of grounded theory which focuses upon conducting research with rather than on people and thereby increasing the validity and value of the research. At the same time, this approach facilitates the application of the research in community-led programs. Her research and application of the family food decision-making framework is an example of CER. This past year, Gillespie introduced CER principles and methodology for national meetings at NIH, the 1890 colleges, and for colleagues at the Society for Nutrition Education Annual meeting.
B.S. 1967 - Iowa State University, Food and Nutrition and Related Sciences
Current Extension Activities: Gillespie achieves her mission of creating learning environments to develop human potential through the integration of research, education, and extension/outreach. The long-term goal of these scholarly activities is to improve the health and well-being of children/youth and their families through transdisciplinary research, co-learning and co-creation. She pursues three overlapping and mutually supportive areas of extension/outreach: food decision-making with an ecosystems perspective, leadership development, and developing engaged methodology with community-based CCE colleagues. The dominant strategy is to engage with interested stakeholders to build leadership capacity for improving health and well-being. In collaboration with social scientists and community-based partners, Gillespie seeks to understand and strengthen the connections among sustainable food systems, food decision-making, and health and well-being. She has recently presented the Family Food Decision-making System Framework at the NIH conference on Decision-making in Eating Behavior, the invitational workshop on social science and obesity for the National Institute for Child Health and Development, NIH, and the national meeting of researchers and extension faculty at the 1890 colleges. She consults with cooperative extension and other community-based group in planning and evaluating family food decision-making programs. One such project is a family cooking workshop series, Cooking Together for Family Meals, which engages families in rethinking their eating practices and food choices as they develop their family human, social, and cultural capital for improving their food decision-making system. This program is one application of the family food decision-making system research and on understanding the impetuses to rethinking eating practices and food choices, i.e. engaging in a thought decision-making pathway and the transition in this pathway from behavioral intention to implementation. Through leadership development projects, Gillespie connects community-based educators, leaders, and decision-makers and food system stakeholders with researchers graduate students and undergraduate students for mutual learning and knowledge creation. This learning web includes Food Decision-making Learning Groups on campus, in communities, and among scholars aroudn the world. These projects apply local knowledge and research findings to identify and implement effective change strategies. She is collaborating with Cornell Cooperative Extension leaders in Building Leadership Capacity for Community Food System Colaborations, with CCE directors and nutrition program leaders in Greene, Onondaga, Tompkins, and Wayne Counties in Building Leadership Capacity for Community Food System Collaborations. Gillespie?s vision is community stakeholders engaged with each other and with external resources working toward an equitable, just, and healthy food system which contributes to the health and well-being of all food system stakeholders. Besides CCE, she supports projects with other community-based organizations and initiatives including the Center for Local Food and Farming, Harrisdale Homestead, Greenstar Cooperative, and New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. Gillespie?s focus on developing community engaged research (CER) methodologies supports extension and outreach as well. Community Engaged research emphasizes methods for the collaborative generation of grounded theory which focuses upon conducting research with rather than on people and thereby increasing the validity and value of the research. At the same time, this approach facilitates the application of the research in community-led programs. Her research and application of the family food decision-making framework is an example of CER. Through her scholarly work and national leadership, Gillespie is facilitating the shifting the paradigm for community intervention toward more engagem
Administrative Responsibilities: Division Extension Leader for Division of Nutritional Sciences
Selected Publications: Gillespie, A. (2008). Family Food Decision-making: An Ecosystems Approach. Decision Making in Eating Behavior: Interacting Perspectives from the Individual, Family, and Envrionment, Bethesda, MD, National Institutes of Health. www.videocast.nih.gov.
Gillespie, A. H. (2008). "Family Food Decision-making and Obesity." Invited emperical paper for NIH National Institute for Child Health and Development Invitted workshop on Feeding Families: Bridging Social Sciences and Social Epidemiology Aproaches to Obesity Research, July 9, Rockville, MD.
Gillespie, A. H. (2008). "Ecosystems Approach to Nutrition: Food and Nutrition Decision-making Imbedded in micro and macro environments." Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Association and the Association for the STudy of Food and Society Pedagogy PanelJune 6, 2008, New Orleans
Gillespie A, Smith L. Food Decision-making Framework (2008), Connecting Food Systems to Health and Well-being. Jounral of Hunger and Environmmental Nutrition 3:328-346.
Gillespie A, Gillespie G. 'Family Food Decision Making: An Ecological Systems Framework. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences 99/2:22-28, 2007
Gillespie A. Generating grounded theory with community partners. Journal of Community Nutrition, 81:16, 2006.
Family and Community Food Decision-making website http://www.cce.cornell.edu/programs/foodsystems/
Gillespie AH. The Evolution of Community Nutrition in the U.S. Journal of Community Nutrition 2003;5:195-208.
Gillespie AH and Gillespie GW. Surveying Families Within Their Community Context: Integrating Research, Education, and Action Through Community Engagement. Abstracts: Community Development Society, July 19-23, 2003.
Gillespie A, Gantner L, Gillespie G, and Howard H. Enhancing Community as Place through Food System Partnerships. Abstracts, Community Development Society, July 19-23, 2003
Gillespie AH, et al. Productive Partnerships for Food: Principles and Strategies. Journal of Extension 41/2, www.joe.org, 2003
Gillespie AH. Developing a university-community partnership model: Integrating research and intervention to improve food decisions in families and communities. Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 1998;31(1).
Leadership in community nutrition. Journal of Nutrition Education. 1997;29:111.
Leadership through diversity: Gateway to change. Journal of Nutrition Education. 1996;28:247.
Gillespie AH and Brun JK. Trends and challenges for nutrition education research. Journal of Nutrition Education 1992;24:222-226.
The information on this bio page is taken from the CHE Annual Report.
