Congratulations to Julie Fortin on Successfully Defending Her PhD [01.07.26]
Julie's research reveals that there is no single pathway towards sustainable food systems, highlighting the many different ways communities can build more resilient futures.
After three years of research, collaboration and countless questions explored along the way, Julie Fortin has successfully defended her PhD.
Julie's dissertation, carried out as part of the Bright Spots project, examined how we can contextualize broad-scale assessments of sustainability in agri-food systems. As part of her research, she developed global datasets on agricultural systems as well as an interdisciplinary Bright Spots methodology to find positive examples of sustainable food systems, which she demonstrated in a test case across India.
One of the central insights from her work is that sustainability does not follow a single blueprint. Instead, Bright Spots emerge in a wide variety of contexts and can fulfil different roles within food systems, from production hubs to distribution hubs. Together, these findings demonstrate that there are many pathways towards building more sustainable agri-food systems.
Looking back on her PhD journey, Julie expressed her sincere gratitude to everyone who contributed to the research over the past three years, as well as to those who joined her defense both in person and online. She also thanked Professors Patrick Meyfroidt, Ingo Grass and Verena Seufert for their thoughtful questions and engagement during the defense.
Congratulations, Julie, on this wonderful achievement. We are proud to celebrate this milestone with you and wish you every success in the exciting journey ahead.
