Tambra Raye Stevenson wants to help her community take back the kitchen. Thanks to Black women leaders in agriculture, nutrition, and dietetics—or “food sheroes,” as she calls them—the slow bake of cultural change has already begun. 

Stevenson, a doctoral student in AU’s School of Communication, has dedicated the last 20 years to advancing food justice. In 2016, she established WANDA, a nonprofit that catalyzes women and girls of African descent to build a more equitable, sustainable, and culturally inclusive food system.

The Oklahoma native sees the fights for food sovereignty and racial justice as inextricably linked and hopes to engage a million Black women as nutrition advocates by 2030. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, less than 3 percent of nutritionists in the US are African American. “I’m trying to engineer a new way to think about the culture of health and fitness,” Stevenson says. 

That reimagination takes many forms, from WANDA’s intimate Sisterhood Suppers, which convene community changemakers in conversation over a heritage meal, to the sweeping Food Bill of Rights, which frames nutrition as a national security issue. 

Drafted by Stevenson and presented in November to Ashwini K.P., special rapporteur with the United Nations Office on Human Rights, the bill is a “blueprint for a food system that values the health and well-being of every citizen, the sustainability of our planet, and the cultural richness of our diverse communities.”

Stevenson’s interest in the health sciences developed as she watched older relatives battle coronary heart disease and diabetes. When her father, who dreamed of opening a restaurant, passed away, she “got into food to honor and handle my grief.” 

She channels that passion and purpose into her work beyond WANDA, cochairing the DC Food Policy Council’s nutrition and health working group—a position to which she was appointed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, SPA/MPP ’00. Stevenson, health chair of the NAACP’s DC branch, is also part of the research team working on AU’s historic five-year, $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study wasted food. 

“Working with Tambra is being inspired with every interaction,” says Sauleh Siddiqui, College of Arts and Science professor and principal investigator on the grant.

At the table Stevenson’s setting, everyone is invited to join.