Jayeeta (Jo) Sharma

Jo (Jayeeta) Sharma is an Associate Professor of Food Studies and Environmental History. She holds graduate appointments at the Department of History, and the School of the Environment, and is affiliated to the School of Cities, SDGs Scholars Academy, and the Centre for Critical South Asian Humanities. She is the founder-director of the Feeding City Lab at the Culinaria Research Centre, which engages with socially just, culturally relevant, and ecologically sustainable food infrastructures and socio-ecological transitions locally and globally. https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/projects/feedingcity/  She co-directs the UTSC Sustainable Food & Farming (SF3) Cluster of Scholarly Prominence: https://utsc.utoronto.ca/foodandfarm/sustainable-food-and-farming-futures-cluster

Jo is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and an elected Board Member of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS). Jo’s research ranges across interdisciplinary themes and transnational spaces connected to mountain environments, commodity capitalism, food labour, city foods, street vending, heirloom crops, seed conservation, urban growing, migrant foodscapes, & agrobiodiversity. She is the author of Empire’s Garden (Duke 2011; Permanent Black 2012; Knowledge Unlatched 2017) and Empire’s Mountains (California 2025). Her most recent article is: “Global Mobilities and Local Immobilities of Tea.” Food Mobilities and Making of World Cuisines, eds. D.E. Bender & S. Cinotto (UTP 2023).

Jo is the PI for several research projects that engage academic and community collaborators and grassroots sustainability networks worldwide:

SSHRC-UKRI Knowledge Synthesis Grant: Migrant Foodscapes across Global Cities: How Ethnocultural Food Gardeners enhance Food Sovereignty, Agro-Biodiversity, & Healthy Lives as Community Actions toward Sustainability

SSHRC Connection Outreach: Voices from the Food Frontlines: Pandemic & Beyond

SSHRC Partnership Development Grant: Resilient Urban Communities & Local Food Systems beyond COVID-19: Developing Knowledge Partnerships Through & Beyond the Pandemic

Jo is a co-PI for the SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Urban Food Security in a Global Marketplace: Tracking produce supply chains to assess food security and food equity in Toronto and region; and a Connection Grant: Connecting and Building the Capacity of Rural to Urban Food Sovereignty Organizations in Ghana.

Jo (Jayeeta) Sharma (Cantab 2002) is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, co-directing the Sustainable Food & Farming Cluster. She leads the Feeding City interdisciplinary lab and is involved in food advocacy networks. Her research explores food sovereignty, diasporas, and historical foodscapes. She's authored "Empire’s Garden" and is working on two new books.

Jo’s historical and contemporary research spans interdisciplinary themes including food systems, empires, and global diasporas. She is PI and co-PI for several global research projects, including SSHRC grants.