Intern

Policy & Communications Intern

Annika La Fave (she/her/hers) joins the OFRF team as the Fall 2023 policy & communications intern. Annika is a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, focusing on public health communications & food systems policy.

Annika began farming in 2010 while completing her B.A. in Education at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. She has since had a varied career in sustainable agriculture raising livestock, vegetables, and cut-flowers, teaching organic farming and small business management at Clackamas Community College, founding her own small vegetable farm business promoting food equity in partnership with Oregon Health & Science University, and, most recently, managing Baltimore County’s Agricultural Center.

Annika is passionate about land stewardship and the pursuit of occupational tenability for small and beginning farmers. She aspires to help create a more equitable food system for producers and consumers. She spends most of her spare time walking and running with her two energetic greyhounds.

Research & Education Intern

Marina Vergara (she/her/hers) joins the OFRF team as the Fall 2023 Research and Education intern. Marina is a graduate student at the University of California, Davis studying International Agricultural Development. Her interests lie in exploring participatory agricultural extension and ways to better support marginalized farmers. Her research examines a participatory silvopastoral extension program in Panama, and the ways in which this model facilitates an informal knowledge exchange amongst model farmers and farmers newly entering the program.

Marina discovered her passion for food and agriculture in college after being drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of food systems. After graduating from Cornell University in 2018 with a BS in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, Marina moved to Panama to serve with the U.S. Peace Corps as an Agriculture Extension Agent, working with small-scale, organic cacao farmers in product development, marketing, and sales. Marina then served with AmeriCorps VISTA in South Texas, where she focused on coalition building for increasing food security and youth curriculum development for food justice and sovereignty in the Rio Grande Valley.

Marina is passionate about supporting marginalized farmers, through collaboration in projects and increasing equity in access to extension support and materials. In her free time, you can find Marina outside hiking, biking, or lounging with her dog Claudia, at the local coffee shop with a good book, or trying something new and tasty to eat.

Policy Intern

Adam Bagul joins the OFRF team as a policy intern for the Summer 2023 quarter. He holds a B.A. in History of Public Policy and Law with a concentration in United States history from the University of California Santa Barbara. Before attending UC Santa Barbara, Adam enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a rifleman and continues to serve in the Marine Corps Reserves. Throughout his undergraduate studies, as well as through his involvement in different student government organizations, Adam developed policy analysis and legislative writing skills that he is excited to contribute to the efforts of OFRF.

In his free time, Adam enjoys an active lifestyle by hiking, spending time at the gym, and running around the monuments of Washington, D.C.