Audrey Bunnell

Audrey Bunnell (she/her) is a graduate student at Arizona State University (ASU), pursuing a Master of Sustainability Solutions and Graduate Certificate in Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership. She graduated summa cum laude in May 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Sustainability and a minor in Sustainable Food Systems from ASU. Audrey is an alumna of the USDA NextGen Internship program and currently works as a part-time Communication and Engagement Specialist at the ASU Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems, where she contributes to the Center's marketing and communications efforts through the development of promotional materials, event planning, web design, newsletters, photography, and blog writing. Audrey is also the inaugural Fellow with the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation, which seeks to transform children’s nutrition through nutrition education and hands-on gardening programs. Additionally, Audrey is an active member of the board of directors at Slow Food Phoenix, where she revived and now runs the chapter’s Snail of Approval program.

Audrey's interest in food systems stems from her deep love of cooking and gardening, and she is particularly passionate about the preservation of agricultural biodiversity through native and heirloom seeds. As an undergraduate in Barrett, the Honors College, she successfully defended her honors thesis: The Story of the Bean: Sustainability Lessons from one of the Southwest’s Oldest Crops. For this project, Audrey performed a diachronic sustainability analysis that examined the historical scholarship on bean cultivation in the Southwest and extracted four key takeaways for sustainability.