05/29/2026
Get to know people in the Food Lab: Molly Riordan!
As Molly Riordan’s career progressed, working in the field of food systems planning, she found herself consistently forging a path where one hadn’t previously existed. After more than a decade in the field, she joined the doctoral program at UB's School of Architecture and Planning, where she spent her first year learning how to write good research questions, better understanding planning theory, and creating bonds with supportive and intelligent mentors and colleagues.
From Cornell University’s Master of Regional Planning program, where she specialized in food systems planning, to the City of Philadelphia, where she supported efforts to procure high-quality, nutritious food for public programs, to working fulltime at The Center for Good Food Purchasing, a Berkeley-based nonprofit — Molly’s journey has always been fueled by an urgency to provide good nutrition. “The policies, programs, and systems that I’ve been working in — and that planners learn a lot about — are not flexible enough to meet that urgency,” she noted.
A highlight of her first year at UB, in addition to being selected as a WNY Prosperity Fellow for the 2026-27 academic year (the first time a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning student has won), has been her role as graduate research assistant in the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab. She’s been working on a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is examining community food systems dashboards and developing guidelines for how to leverage tools to advance data equity for food equity.
Keep reading to learn more about Molly’s tremendous accomplishments and what drew her to UB: https://archplan.buffalo.edu/news/2026/molly-riordan-phd-student-spotlight.html
