The
pOLICY

Working Group

What we do

The Policy Working Group focuses on supporting all Coalition working groups through research, advocacy, engagement, and policy refinement strategy development. The Policy Working Group will also field policy related questions from all Coalition members or the general public and work to provide timely and accurate answers to all inquiries. Working with the Steering Committee, the Policy Working Group will prioritize the policy agenda for the Coalition, focusing resources on the Coalition’s agreed upon high priority policy projects.

Meet the working group

Livy Lewis

Policy Working Group Chair

Wind River Food Sovereignty Project

Stefani Smith

Producer, Farm to Fork Wyoming

Stefani has had a lifelong passion for the harvest. She began working full time at 15 as a seasonal laborer moving from seafood canneries to apple picking and eventually net building. This led her to commercial fishing as a deckhand in Alaska’s Bering Sea fisheries for 17years. Having “fished” herself through college, she continued fishing while producing documentaries and educational videos until moving to Wyoming in 2007. In 2010 Stefani joined Wyoming PBS in Riverton and began producing short current affairs stories, covering everything from food regulations to ranchers and refugees. But her interests were constantly drawn to Wyoming’s local AG movement. In 2012 she launched Farm to Fork Wyoming. This series has since produced 30 episodes exploring Wyoming’s unique and inspired local food movement.

Alyssa Wechsler

MPhil. Associate Research Scientist, University of Wyoming

After receiving her master’s degree in Geography and the Environment from the University of Oxford, Alyssa returned to her home town of Laramie, WY to join Dr. Christine Porter as Food Dignity’s project coordinator. She is now an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Wyoming and project manager for the NIH-funded Growing Resilience research project, along with several other research projects focused on food justice, food sovereignty, and health.

Jesse Miller

Family Medicine Physician

Jesse Miller, DO was born and raised in Casper, WY. He is a Family Medicine Physician dedicated to preventing chronic disease through diet and lifestyle changes. Dr. Miller has been a leader in the Wyoming local food system and sits as the Chair of Wyoming’s Food Coalition’s Infrastructure, Transportation, and Marketing Working Group. Dr. Miller has received two United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) and one USDA Farmers’ Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grants assessing and implementing strategies to expand Wyoming’s local food system. Additionally, Dr. Miller is a board member for the Casper Community Greenhouse Project, a Wyoming 501(c)3 non-profit focused on improving nutrition education for citizens of Casper.