SEED PhD Profile, Sadaf Mollaei
Sadaf Mollaei is a PhD candidate in the Sustainability Management program at the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on sustainable eating behaviours of young adults in Canada. Sadaf is also interested in sustainable food from the consumer perspective, including eating behaviours and promoting sustainable eating behaviours and interventions from a marketing perspective.
Research and inspiration
Sadaf completed her bachelor’s in civil engineering before pursuing an MBA in marketing, where her focus was on brand equity and how to promote green brands in the food industry. She quickly realized she loved the human, social science side of this work, especially being a foodie herself. She was inspired to pursue this work in particular as a student coming from a coming from a country with noticeable differences compared to Canada in terms of the general living conditions and day-to-day issues and challenges. Together, these experience have shaped her journey into researching food equity, food security, and the role of consumption.
Coming from the Master’s in Sustainability Management, Sadaf chose the PhD in Sustainability Management program because she loves the culture of SEED. Her experience has been one of positivity and support, especially from her supervisor, Goretty Dias, and other faculty, including Mike Wood, Leia Minaker, Jennifer Lynes. One aspect of the program that was especially appealing was its interdisciplinary nature, which expands the volume of opportunities and people she engages with.
Top experiences in SEED
Teaching in a more professional, formal way has been one of Sadaf’s top experiences in the program. She has taught several courses across the Sustainability Management and Environment and Business programs.
She also took the pandemic as an opportunity to focus on her research. Sadaf tried to see it as something new and challenging rather than something intimidating, and this helped her to make significant progress on her work.
There is no set path in a field like sustainability management, given its interdisciplinarity, so Sadaf encourages students to keep their minds open to learning new methodologies and paradigms—it’s an exciting journey!
It’s also important to be aware that the field is new and flexible. There are no clearly defined processes or frameworks, sort of like a start-up. This impacts everything students will do in the program, such as when trying to publish, they will find more than just one journal that may be relevant.
Be patient with yourself and others, as it’s a long process with much iteration. When you start your PhD, you may feel like you want to do a lot and achieve many things, meet lots of people and publish lots of papers, but four years really isn’t a lot of time and learning to say no is an important, but necessary skill since many opportunities will come your way.
Keeping it real
Outside of work, Sadaf loves baking—specifically birthday cakes. During the pandemic, she realized how much she loved it, and baked more than she could eat so she started sharing it with people. She also loves playing tennis!
What’s next?
Sadaf is hoping to defend her dissertation in the fall term of 2022. She really enjoys teaching and building connections with her students, and hopes to continue doing that.
Connect with Sadaf
Sadaf invites new connections to reach out to her via:
~ Article prepared by Ryan Johnson, PhD Student in Sustainability Management