Youjin Choe

Project: Community Food Access: Small Grocery Stores in Underserved Areas in Oakland

Client: Berkeley Food Institute

Youjin Choe, MPP ’16, is a native of South Korea and pursued her undergraduate studies at the University of Washington, majoring in geographic information systems and international studies. Prior to her graduate work at Berkeley, she served as project officer for the Vietnam Country Program at the Global Green Growth Institute in Seoul. After completing her MPP at the Goldman School, Youjin has served as consultant to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), in particular its Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division in Bangkok. Youjin’s fellowship project, “Community Food Access: Small Grocery Stores in Underserved Areas in Oakland,” analyzed elements of the local “food desert” problem for the Berkeley Food Institute. Observing that current arrangements resulted in part from the fragmentation of support for healthy-good small grocery stores among government, community and civil society interests, Youjin’s report recommended establishing a multi-stakeholder network for data-sharing and coalition-building.