Max Dunsker is a fourth-year Departmental Honors Scholar completing a double major in International Development Studies and Economics with a minor in Geospatial Information Systems. Last year, he won a UCLA Dean’s Prize for Undergraduate Research for his work on investigating the effects and clientele of a supplemental food voucher program at Santa Monica’s Virginia Avenue Park Farmers’ Market. Currently, he works as a research assistant doing database management and GIS analysis for the California Center for Population Research, studying and mapping how minimum wage is affecting restaurants across Los Angeles County. His thesis research is on how decisions made by national governments regarding the creation of palm oil plantations have ramifications in the form of increased commodity price variability, environmental degradation, and labor market distortion which exacerbate the food insecurity of local stakeholders in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is working with Judith Carney, author of Black Rice and Fellow of the Association of American Geographers. After graduation, Max hopes to continue doing research for the social good, working to improve distribution mechanisms and increase equity in global food systems.