Associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas, Austin, USA 

Erin Lentz is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research explores food security; humanitarian information systems and their links to policymaking; gender, nutrition, and agriculture linkages; and U.S. food aid and food assistance policies. As a sociologist, Dr. Lentz takes an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to her research, drawing on qualitative and quantitative methods and collaborating with economists, sociologists, nutritionists, anthropologists, and climate scientists, among others. 

Lentz has deep regional experience in South Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa. She has published over 40 articles and book chapters and one book. She has been a Fulbright Scholar to Bangladesh, has served on Austin, Texas’s Food Policy Board, and testified to the United States Congress on food aid reform. She currently serves on the editorial board of Gender and Society. She has received funding from the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy, the National Science Foundation, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations World Food Programme, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, USAID and others. Dr. Lentz holds a BA in Economics (1999), an MS in Applied Economics and Management (2005) and a PhD in Sociology (2014) all from Cornell University.