Bio

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is a human geographer and food systems scholar. She is an Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University. In 2024, she was named a fellow with the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Dr. Minkoff-Zern’s newest book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain (UC Press, 2025), looks at labor across food sectors, exploring the intersections between social movements in United States food systems and labor organizing. Other recent projects include exploring the potential for Food Policy Councils to engage in regional labor advocacy and the impact of current US immigration policy on food workers and employers, including the H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers. Her first monograph, The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability (MIT Press, 2019) investigates the experiences of Latinx farmers who have transitioned from farm labor to farm ownership across the United States. She earned a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Sustainable Agriculture and Development from Cornell University and has experience laboring on farms, in restaurants, and feeding her own family at home.