Alison Meares Cohen is the co-founder and General Coordinator of the National Right to Food Community of Practice -- a growing network of community organizers, food and farm organizations, small scale food producers, those directly impacted by hunger, advocates, researchers and legal experts building a movement for the Right to Food in the U.S.

For the past thirty years, Alison has worked with grassroots-led organizations in rural and urban farming communities in the United States and throughout the world. From 2009 to 2021 Alison served as the Senior Director of Programs for WhyHunger where she stewarded its programs providing support to grassroots organizations in the U.S. and social movements globally who are working toward addressing the root causes of hunger and the deep inequities of poverty.  

Prior to joining WhyHunger, Alison worked with Heifer International organizing rural and urban farming communities throughout the Northeast and Midwest regions of the U.S. to build and advocate for sustainable food systems. Alison has a master's degree in Sociology from Virginia Tech University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Alison’s work is rooted in her understanding that grassroots-led social movements are the most effective means for dismantling inequitable systems and erecting new socially just ones.
Alison was born and raised in the rural mountainous region of Western North Carolina but has been living, gardening and riding bikes in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two daughters for the past 23 years.