Biography

Amberley T. Ruetz has been working nationally and internationally to advance school food and farm-to-school programming since 2015.

As the key interlocutor on Canadian school food research to the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, the research arm of the Global School Meal Coalition, and the Co-Chair of the Canadian Association for Food Studies’ School Food Working Group, she helps coordinate Canadian school food research.

Amberley led the first systematic survey of school food programs in Canada and is a regular op-ed contributor on school food.

In 2019, Amberley was invited by the Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development to Canada’s first roundtable consultation on developing a National School Food Program.

Amberley continues to consult the government on school food in her new capacity as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan where she is now coordinating the largest evaluation of school food program implementation models with Dr. Rachel Engler-Stringer and academic partners across Canada.

As a community-engaged researcher, Amberley is actively involved in supporting the work of a number of non-governmental organizations advancing school food in Canada. Amberley has been supporting the work of the Canadian Coalition for Healthy School Food since 2018, in 2021 she contributed to the development of Canada’s Farm-to-School Evaluation Framework and was appointed to Farm to Cafeteria Canada’s Advisory Council.