Dr. Jennifer Sweeney Tookes is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Georgia Southern University. She is an applied anthropologist conducting field research in the US South and the Caribbean since 2003. Her dissertation research on the Caribbean island of Barbados and with migrant Barbadians in Atlanta, GA examined food, health, and the body in the diaspora. Sweeney Tookes's post-doctoral research fellowship at Emory University asked: “How can Georgia seafood producers use the burgeoning local food movement to increase their participation in the inland market; and make sustainable, local seafood available to a larger segment of the Georgia population?” and included an extensive applied outreach focus with local foods and Georgia fishing communities. Her current research projects focus on collaboration with fishermen in Georgia and in the US Virgin Islands to investigate new opportunities to support commercial fishing communities. Current projects include: expansion of local markets for Georgia oysters (USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education project with UGA and Emory), an oral history project with Georgia fishermen (Georgia Department of Natural Resources collaboration with Georgia Sea Grant), a pilot study examining health and well-being among fishing crew in the Savannah River Basin (Marine Fisheries Institute project with Emory University) and a social census of Georgia's working waterfronts (Georgia Sea Grant funded collaboration with Emory and UGA Marine Extension).   Sweeney Tookes is a member of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC)'s SocioEconomic Panel and active in the Society for Applied Anthropology.