Mackenzie Shreve

B.A. Summa Cum Laude with Honors in Theology and minors in Leadership and Islamic World Studies from Loyola University Chicago.

Born in Chicago, Mackenzie was a proud student of Chicago Public Schools before her family moved to Nebraska when she was a teen. Always a proud city-kid, no one was more surprised than she was when she developed a deep interest in farming after completing an agriculture-focused internship. This transformational experience of immersive education laid the foundation for her life-long interest in agriculture and well-facilitated experiential education. After studying abroad in Delhi in 2007, Mackenzie moved to India in 2009 to better understand the ground situation of farmers in India in the larger context of global agriculture. Amazed by the intensity of India’s complex social structures, economies, ecologies, she kept extending her stay to this day, working with a variety of non-profits and teaching Hindi to foreigners. As serious about education as she is about food, Mackenzie immersed herself in alternative educational initiatives in India before she began co-facilitating immersion-based courses focused on place and people for top Indian universities, such as Center for Environment Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad. Her community-focused commitments have been centered around the conservation of the Aravalli Range, conservation of local seeds with a focus on youth-engagement, strengthening of local economies, and forest conservation.

Mackenzie is always ready to make a compost pile, plant a garden, gain deeper insights, make new friends, and engage the next generation.

She also holds certificates in the Soil Food Web by Dr. Elaine Ingham and Plant-Based Nutrition by eCornell.