About Maywa Montenegro de Wit
Maywa Montenegro de Wit is a transdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of agroecology, political ecology, and science & technology studies on questions broadly related to transformations to equitable food systems. As an assistant professor in the department of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, she braids a background in molecular biology and science journalism into critical social science approaches to food systems research and education. Current teaching and research interests include gene editing in agriculture, commoning alternatives to IP, abolitionist praxis, and knowledge politics of agroecology and food sovereignty movements globally.
A first-generation U.S. citizen, Dr. Montenegro was raised in rural
Appalachia and is the daughter of an Indigenous Quechua father and a Dutch mother. Her PhD work at UC Berkeley explored trends of agrobiodiversity loss through the lens of colonialism, the Green Revolution, and knowledge politics shaping contemporary landscapes of dispossession and repossession. Her postdoc at UC Davis extended this research into CRISPR/Cas gene editing in food systems, specifically how discourses of “democratization” enable contradictory possibilities to unfold in the making, sharing, and governing of new technologies. As a new professor at UC Santa Cruz, she is continuing to research new biotechnologies, pathways connecting agrobiodiversity to human health/nutrition, and agroecological-abolitionist food futures. Dr. Montenegro is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, serves on the board of the Journal of Agriculture and Human Values , and co-facilitates the Agroecology Research-Action Collective (ARC).
