Hello!
My name is Alexa Papahadjopoulos, and I am a Public Health student at Davidson College with interests in environmental health, nutrition, food systems, and community-based research.
These interests have developed gradually throughout my time in college. While studying as an exchange student at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, I was introduced more closely to public health issues in the Pacific region. Living in a multicultural city and taking courses in food science, environmental health, and Pacific history helped me begin to understand how food systems operate in different cultural and geographic contexts.
During my time in the South Pacific, I became more aware of how quickly food systems are changing across Pacific Island nations, and how often these changes are described through statistics that can miss the everyday realities behind them. I also began to notice that some regions and communities receive less attention in global public health conversations, even as they undergo significant nutritional and environmental transitions.
That interest stayed with me as I returned to my studies at Davidson, and Foodscapes developed naturally.
My academic background has supported this path. I have studied global public health, environmental health, social statistics, quantitative data analysis, and ethnographic writing at Davidson. I have also studied abroad in Portugal and the Czech Republic, experiences that helped me think more carefully about place, culture, and my role as a visitor and learner in different communities.
Alongside my academic work, I have been involved in community-based public health research. I worked as a research assistant on a Tribal Health Assessment in collaboration with the Catawba Nation Health Authority, where I supported data analysis and learned more about how health research can be shaped to better reflect community priorities. That experience helped me better understand the importance of culturally grounded approaches in public health work.
I also volunteer in food access and community health spaces, which continues to shape how I think about food insecurity as something connected to systems, access, and lived experience.
Taken together, these experiences led me to Port Vila. I came with questions shaped by my studies, but also with an understanding that learning in community settings takes time and depends on listening as much as observing. Some of the most meaningful parts of this project came from everyday interactions, informal conversations in markets, and the routines that shape how people move through food systems in daily life.
Through Foodscapes, I hope to share a grounded, place-based view of food in Port Vila, Vanuatu. I aimed to learn more about ethnography, about myself, and about the tools needed to better understand and engage with a community, while also contributing to broader conversations about nutrition transition, food security, environmental change, and cultural resilience.