ATLANTA — Georgia State undergraduate students Harita Yepuri and Sudip Agrahari, along with their mentor Assistant Professor of Nutrition Nida I. Shaikh, have created an exhaustive database for all on- and off-campus dining options surrounding Georgia State’s six campuses.
Agrahari, a computer information systems major who will begin his sophomore year this fall, began the project in October 2023 as a University Assistantship Program research scholar with Shaikh. Initially, they started by assessing the number of halal food options available on Georgia State’s campuses as part of a larger funded project, but the work expanded to build a comprehensive database of all options where food is available on and around campus.
“While we were delving into understanding the availability of halal food on campus, we figured that if we were already doing that, then it would be good to know what the overall food environment was like,” Agrahari said.
“Food environments are really closely tied to nutrition, and they can affect your health and your health outcomes, so that’s why this is important,” Yepuri, a neuroscience major, continued. “Over 18 million people in the U.S. are pursuing higher education and most of those students are spending up to or more than 30 hours per week on campus, so if they don't have an accommodating food environment and they don't know where to find that kind of information, it just makes life a lot more difficult.”
Over the course of five months, Yepuri and Agrahari visited Georgia State’s Alpharetta, Clarkston, Decatur, Dunwoody, Newton and Atlanta campuses, and surveyed all food options on campus and within a half-mile radius. They visited and made note of every restaurant, dining hall and vending machine.
With this data, Agrahari created a searchable online map with over 200 places where food is available across Georgia State’s campuses, as well as the extent to which vegetarian, vegan, kosher and halal foods were available at each one. Yepuri used the data for her honor’s thesis comparing the campus food environment across all six campuses.
Yepuri and Agrahari have presented their research at the Lewis College Research Day and Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference, and the Chemistry Graduate Student Association Symposium. Yepuri has been selected to share her honor’s thesis research at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, and Shaikh will present at the Society for Nutrition, Education and Behavior later this summer.
Yepuri and Agrahari would like to make their food map a tool for all students to use.
“Something we’d like to do is make the food map available to new students through a QR code on their orientation packets,” Agrahari said.
Agrahari and Yepuri have also partnered with Panther’s Pantry, an initiative that provides supplemental food assistance and basic necessities to those in the university community. Panther’s Pantry locations are included in the map that Agrahari created to make them easier to locate for people who may need them.
“We want to be able to tell students that there are these resources available to them and where they can go and get them,” Agrahari said. “With the university’s size, it can be hard for them to actually find these places.”
They also hope this project leads to more inclusive food options for students.
“Georgia State is one of the largest universities in the Southeastern United States. It’s also a Minority Serving Institution and a public R01 university. A lot of students go here and it’s a pretty diverse student body,” Yepuri said. “If we can accommodate for diets that cater to one’s culture and/or religion — restrictive diets — then we can really help them feel like they fit in here.”
— Story by Katherine Duplessis