Nicole Civita, JD, LL.M. is a food systems innovator, educator, ethicist and attorney. Her approach to fostering change in and through food is grounded in systems thinking and ecological knowledge, attentive to relationships of care and reciprocity, and framed by comprehensive law and policy knowledge. She has extensive experience leading multi-stakeholder, community-based projects to support the development of vibrant and resilient place-based agroecological food systems and systems-aware policies. Nicole’s scholarship and service identify ethical values and explore dilemmas across the food chain, with particular attention to the well-being of workers, producers, their families and communities. Through this work, she produces ethics guidance, actionable policy and programmatic recommendations, and truth-telling tools that enable nourishing, informed, and values-aligned choices about food. Nicole is nationally recognized for her work on food waste and conservation and harnessing the hidden power of food systems to address the climate crisis.

As a “pracademic” and higher education administrator, Nicole’s work spans education, organizing, and professional practice. Prior to her appointment as Sterling College’s Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, Nicole served the college as Senior Advisor to the President, Faculty in Sustainable Food Systems, and the Assistant Director of the Rian Fried Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. She was instrumental in establishing the School of the New American Farmstead and developing undergraduate curriculum in sustainable food systems. Nicole has also held faculty appointments as: Sustainable Food Systems Specialization Lead in the Masters of the Environment professional graduate program at the University of Colorado Boulder (where she provided experiential, service-oriented education and close mentorship to the next generation of changemakers in the food system); an affiliated professor with the LL.M. Program in Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law; and as a research scholar with the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and its Global Food Ethics and Policy Program.

Nicole is honored to be a founding co-convener and policy director for Project Protect Food Systems, a diverse coalition of immigrants, farmers, scholars, activists, unions, public health officials, and workers across Colorado that works to identify, elevate and address the needs of the people who contribute their labor to all parts of the food system. Nicole has also served as a member of the Colorado Food Systems Coalition and its COVID-19 Rapid Response & Vision teams. She is a co-director of Business Unusual: The Essential Workers Project and was a core member of the Choose Food project team. In 2019, she was appointed by Governor Jared Polis to serve on the Colorado Food Systems Advisory Council.

Internationally, in collaboration with Gopikabai Sitaram Gawande (GSG) College in Umarkhed, India, Nicole spearheaded the development of the Maati-Paani-Asha vision, which points the way toward a regenerative and relational agricultural system capable of reducing farmer suicide, developing resilience against drought and extreme heat, and improving health.