CAFS Faculty & Staff
Laurie Beyranevand »
Laurie Beyranevand JD’03 is the Pescosolido Professor of Food and Agricultural Law and Policy and a Professor of Law at Vermont Law and Graduate School and an attorney focused on public health in the context of the food system. Before joining the VLGS faculty, she worked for Vermont Legal Aid, where she represented adults and children advocating for access to health care, education, and civil rights. Laurie has served as an appointed member of the Food and Drug Law Institute’s Food and Drug Law Journal Editorial Advisory Board, a founding member and current board member of the Academy of Food Law and Policy, and an executive committee member of the Agriculture and Food Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. A first-generation American with Iranian and Appalachian roots, Laurie has always appreciated the power of diverse foods to bring people together. More »
Lindsey Connolly »
Lindsey Connolly MELP’11 provides administrative, grant, project, and technical support for faculty, staff, and students at CAFS. In addition to her Master of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law and Graduate School, she holds a BS in Marine Biology from the University of New England and participates in CAFS research on fisheries policy and aquatic food systems. Lindsey has worked for both local and national nonprofits involved in watershed quality monitoring and increasing access to clean drinking water. A native Vermonter, she loves painting, traveling, kayaking, and woodland adventures with her husband and dogs. More »
Francine Miller »
Fran Miller LLM’17 works on issues related to farmland access, particularly for historically marginalized communities, through the Farmland Access Legal Toolkit and serves private clients regarding collaborative and community land ownership and business formation. An Adjunct Professor of Vermont Law and Graduate School, Fran supervises students in the Food and Agriculture Clinic and leads a variety of research projects. She spent many years as a trademark and copyright lawyer in New York City before earning a Master of Laws (LLM) in Food and Agriculture Law at VLGS. She moved to Vermont in 2019 to work at CAFS. More »
Lihlani Nelson »
Lihlani Nelson strategically manages and directs operations and programming at CAFS, including program development, project management, financial analysis and grants management, evaluation, reporting, and partnerships management. She also leads and contributes to projects, including the Healthy Food Policy Project, the Farm to School State Policy Handbook, and Farmers Market Legal Toolkit, among others. She has a dual masters in Agroecology and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining CAFS in 2016, she worked at the National Farm to School Network as a Program Associate. More »
Bella O'Connor
Bella O'Connor JD'24 is an attorney and organizer interested in implementing the transformative solutions emerging within the food justice movement. Bella received her JD from Vermont Law and Graduate School, where she served as an Environmental Mission Scholar and was the recipient of the Marc Mihaly Environmental Leadership Award for outstanding service in her volunteer and clinical work. In both her personal and professional life, she has collaborated with local, state, and national organizations on a broad range of grassroots campaigns and policy initiatives combatting our climate crisis and the exploitative nature of industrial agriculture. Moreover, she is the founder of the Vermont Coalition Against Factory Farms (VCAFF), where she passionately advocates for solutions to the public health, consolidation, and animal rights issues created by the proliferation of CAFOs in her state. She lives in South Royalton, manages her local farmers market, and is happiest when she is enjoying a crisp, fall day.
Austin Price »
Austin Price works closely with CAFS staff, faculty, and students to disseminate legal and scholarly research, maintain the CAFS resource library, and connect CAFS’s work with community organizers, farmers, policymakers, researchers, and journalists. As a writer and editor, he has covered environmental policy and advocacy, wildlife, fisheries, and agriculture for publications like Bay Nature, Sierra, Yale Environment 360, and Earth Island Journal, where he was a contributing editor. Prior to joining CAFS, Austin managed strategic communications for the Berkeley Food Institute, a food systems research and policy center at the University of California, Berkeley. Before that, he lived and worked on a market garden in Canada’s Northwest Territories. More »
Haley Rowlands
Haley Rowlands conducts legal research and contributes to CAFS's projects on agricultural systems, aquaculture, and biodiversity. Prior to joining CAFS, she was a public interest law fellow with Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide. She earned a JD from Boston College Law School and an undergraduate degree in plant biology from the University of Vermont. She taught Environmental Law and Policy at Boston College and has worked with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Charles River Watershed Association, and Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. She has worked on farms and in community gardens for over a decade, and has volunteered as a Master Gardener through UVM Extension. She enjoys hiking, running, fostering kittens, and making linocut prints.
Emma Scott »
Emma Scott is an Associate Professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, where she supervises students and directs the Food and Agriculture Clinic at CAFS. Her research and legal work focus primarily on policy concerning food system workers. Emma previously worked as a Lecture on Law and Associate Director of the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, where she primarily led the clinic’s advocacy on farmworkers and the farm bill. Originally from California, Emma served as an Attorney-Fellow at California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, where she represented migrant farmworker communities in employment litigation. Before that, she clerked on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California for the Honorable John A. Mendez. More »
Emily Spiegel »
Emily Spiegel conducts legal research and leads CAFS projects related to food systems resilience, biodiversity, and natural resources. Before joining CAFS in 2017, Emily was a consultant and law fellow at the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. She earned her JD from Duke University School of Law. A returned Peace Corps volunteer from Jordan, Emily’s background focuses on agriculture, land use, and international development. She worked as an International Agricultural Development Specialist with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, and has interned in Rome, Italy, at the legal offices of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. More »
Liz Turner »
Liz Turner leads CAFS research on policies related to urban agriculture, land use, and local government. Originally from Dummerston, Vermont, Liz joined CAFS after earning a JD from Harvard Law School. At HLS, she worked as a student attorney in the Food Law and Policy Clinic, Animal Law and Policy Clinic, and Transactional Law Clinic, and spent summers at the Conservation Law Foundation’s Food & Farm Initiative and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Before law school, Liz spent more than a decade working in the food system as a farmhand, line cook, and in various roles in the specialty coffee industry, from barista to coffee roaster to marketer. More »