Cassandra (she/her) is a policy specialist at the National Farm to School Network. With an undergraduate degree in agriculture, Cassandra entered the school food movement by farming in Western New York, running a farmers market, and building community gardens. Through these experiences, she saw the value of institutional connections to rural food systems and developed a countywide farm to school program at Cornell Cooperative Extension. She then expanded this work to evaluate New York’s local food purchasing incentive policy and continued to research similar incentives across the nation through her graduate work at Tufts University. At the National Farm to School Network, she actively tracks and supports Network Partners in advocating for state-level policy. Her expertise is in local food purchasing incentives, values-based purchasing, school meals for all, and the relationship between these mutually beneficial policies. Her passion lies in creating opportunities for peer learning, making connections across geographies and stakeholder groups, and innovating policy toward a more just and sustainable food system.