Michelle Veras, MPH, serves as the Farmers Market Fellow for the City of Boston’s Office of Food Justice. Her lived experiences with food insecurity growing up in Newark, New Jersey, ignited her passion for promoting food justice for other vulnerable communities. She went on to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a minor in German at Bowdoin College in Maine. While at Bowdoin, Michelle led the QuestBridge chapter in building community with other first-generation college students. She also led a service trip to Puerto Rico to support natural disaster relief efforts. 

Michelle recently received her Master of Public Health degree from Boston University School of Public Health, where she specialized in program management. Prior to starting her MPH education, she supported the Flexible Services program at Boston Medical Center,  connecting food and housing-insecure BMC patients with services. She also supported the Massachusetts Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MA DPH). In her role at MA DPH, she built capacity for home visiting programs across the state to engage home visiting clients as equal thought partners and leverage their lived experiences to enhance service provision. 

Outside of work, Michelle enjoys walking around Jamaica Pond, watercolor painting, and hiking. She recently got a WWOOF membership to start volunteering at organic farms in New England. Michelle is also a certified Reiki practitioner who enjoys going to Reiki shares in her neighborhood. She hopes to incorporate Reiki, an energy healing modality, into her public health practice to address trauma and chronic stress resulting from racism and systemic oppression targeting communities of color.