Maria Elena Alvarado-Rodriguez is a Queer femme cultural worker, community-accountable researcher, and food systems consultant with over seventeen years of experience using food as a vehicle to build vibrant, just communities. Based in both Fajardo, Puerto Rico, and Sonoma County, California, Maria Elena considers her life's work to be creating food systems that honor intergenerational ancestral cultural knowledge, center BIPOC communities, nourish the environment, and deepen Queer community.

Growing up in the US Puerto Rican diaspora, she made the decision to return home to Puerto Rico in 2017, just five months before Hurricanes Irma and Maria toppled the island's infrastructure - devastating the power grid, communications, transportation, and agriculture. In the months and years that followed, Maria Elena built an island-wide network of collaborators as she helped raise funds and gather donations for impacted farmers, trained in agroecology and traditional food preservation methods, and launched a small farm project and fermented foods business.

Throughout her career Maria Elena has conducted multiple national field-building research projects, provided strategic assistance to clients, curated numerous large-scale gatherings, convened communities of practice, and supported capacity-building of food systems organizations and small-scale sustainable farmers across the US and Puerto Rico. She has led initiatives in food justice and climate justice community organizing, food access expansion, farmers’ market development, and food entrepreneurship.

A first generation college graduate, Maria Elena holds a Master's in Community Development from the University of California Davis and a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. Maria Elena is trained in Community-Based Participatory Research Methodologies (UC Berkeley CHUM) and views community-accountable and participatory research as an important tool for narrative change and collective liberation.

Maria Elena is a 2025 Food and Society at Aspen Institute Food Leaders Fellow and an alumna of Soul Fire Farm BIPOC Immersion, Proyecto Agroecológico El Josco Bravo, and the Rockwood Leadership Institute. Maria Elena collaborates in her local community with El Departamento de la Comida de Puerto Rico and Alacena Feminista del Este. Maria Elena has a passion for learning languages and speaks and dreams in English, Spanish, and Italian.