Sharon Cech is Co-Director of the Center for Community Food & Resilience. For over a decade, her work has focused on achieving more equitable, sustainable, and nourishing local food systems in the Los Angeles region through project work in urban agriculture, farmers’ markets, and farm to school. With a specialty in cultivating collaborative partnerships, Sharon currently leads the LA Subregion of the Southwest Regional Food Business Center, Occidental’s Urban Agriculture Summer Internship program, and other multi-stakeholder initiatives that promote fresh food access and resilient urban food systems. Sharon is also a member of the LA County Food Equity Roundtable, and as an LA County Master Gardener, co-leads their School Garden Network. As an Adjunct Professor at Occidental, she teaches community-engaged courses exploring the topics of food systems, food justice, and sustainability. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Bard College and an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Email: cech@oxy.edu
Phone Number: (323) 341-4807
Office: UEPI 1541 Campus Rd.

Rosa Romero is Co-Director of the Center for Community Food and Resilience. Rosa specializes in Farm to Preschool, Garden, and Health curriculum development and teacher training. She is currently leading CCFR’s community-based EscWELLa initiative to enrich the health and wellness of Northeast Los Angeles school communities (las escuelas). In partnership with school communities, EscWELLa engages and empowers parents, students, teachers, and community organizations to develop long-term wellness campaigns to grow schools into thriving community hubs. She co-leads LAFPC’s LA Farm to School & Garden Working Group. She is also a Master Gardener and longtime advocate and practitioner of Urban Agriculture in LA and is Board President of the South Central Farm Restoration Committee. She received her B.A. from UCLA in the Politics of Urban Education and her MEd in Early Childhood Education from the University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Email: rromero@oxy.edu
Phone Number: (323) 341-4806
Office: UEPI 1541 Campus Road

Raquel Galarza is the Health Education Manager for the Center for Community Food and Resilience. Her work focuses leading nutrition education initiatives in local community sites, as well as empowering community members to make changes towards healthy, active lifestyles. In her previous position at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she worked closely with LAUSD elementary schools on school wellness, nutrition education and physical activity programs. She holds her B.S. in Health Science from Cal State Fullerton, and her Masters of Public Health in Community Health and Prevention from UCLA.
Email: rgalarza@oxy.edu
Phone Number: (323) 341-5097
Office: UEPI 1541 Campus Road

Siana Park-Pearson (she/her) ’24 is the Farm to Classroom Project Coordinator at the Center for Community Food and Resilience (CCFR). Combining her Media Arts and Culture degree with her interest in food studies, Siana worked as the UEPI student intern and web assistant for her student tenure at Oxy. She assisted with the full scope of UEPI’s work, including nutrition education, urban agriculture, city-wide greening initiatives, native plant restoration, food assistance programming, and farmers market access and expansion. Siana strives to bridge her Occidental community and others to LA’s expansive food, education, and environment systems. She’s excited to continue her work at the intersection of media literacy, community building, and food access alongside this driven team.
Email: parkpearson@oxy.edu
Office Number: UEPI 1541 Campus Road

Owen Lee (they/he) '26 is working as a Urban Ag Research Intern on the Urban Ag at the Market Project. Owen is majoring in American Studies, with an academic focus on Indigenous sovereignty, and minoring in Urban and Environmental Policy. After completing the Urban Agriculture Internship in their first summer, they are developing a curriculum for urban farmers, both established and aspiring, who want to scale up production in order to sell at their neighborhood farmers' market. Owen is grateful for the opportunity to build community ecological knowledge and work directly on LA's food systems alongside experts in the field.
Email: olee2@oxy.edu

Ellie Chang (she/her) is UEPI's Community Food Systems Intern. Much of her work is focused on the Urban Ag at the Market Project; a project that aims to support local growers and bring specialty crops into underserved communities. She will be assisting with the implementation of a curriculum for urban farmers, who want to scale up production in order to sell at their neighborhood farmers' markets. As a Urban and Environmental Policy major, Ellie is thankful for the opportunity to apply her learning and dive deeping in the Los Angeles food system. After participating in the Urban Agriculture internship program this past summer, Ellie has become passionate about food justice and access and is excited to approach the issue from an academic perspective.
Email: echang2@oxy.edu