Why Don’t Food-Insecure Veterans Enroll in SNAP?

Tamara Dubowitz

Tamara Dubowitz is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Trained in social epidemiology with concentrations in maternal and child health and public health nutrition, her research focuses on the role of place, or geography, and the health of marginalized populations and the health and nutrition effects of policy (e.g., housing policy, food policy, urban planning). Dubowitz has examined food access and food security among military personnel and in historically oppressed populations, with one suite of projects following a cohort of residents in two low-income Pittsburgh neighborhoods for more than a decade. She has a Sc.D. in social epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Megan Bowman

Megan Bowman is the National Nutrition Food Security Program coordinator for the Veterans Health Administration’s Food Security Program Office. She was previously a registered dietician in the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System and a Health and Aging Policy Program fellow, and she sits on local and national committees tasked with ensuring veteran food security and overseeing program quality management. Bowman has a M.S. in human nutrition from Arizona State University and holds an adjunct faculty position at Salt Lake Community College, where she teaches nutrition science.

Bryan Escobedo

Bryan Escobedo is the executive director of technology and innovation and the technology product owner at Combined Arms, where he has led the organization’s national expansion through data-driven collaborative models for social impact. In 2022, he was selected as a George W. Bush Institute Stand-To Leadership Program scholar. After serving as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, Escobedo created and ran five veteran-focused nonprofit programs while pursuing a B.A. in communication studies at the University of Houston, including an employment and peer-mentoring program. His dedication to volunteer leadership also led him to develop a transition workshop for veterans and contribute his time to other organizations and causes.

Josh Protas

Josh Protas is the vice president of public policy and heads the Washington, D.C., office of MAZON. In this role, he coordinates and implements MAZON’s advocacy agenda, including efforts to strengthen and improve the federal nutrition safety net, with a particular emphasis on policy solutions to address the food security needs of overlooked populations. He previously held leadership positions with the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Protas served on the board of directors of the Coalition on Human Needs and was recently appointed to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans. He has an M.A. in Western American history and public history from Arizona State University.

Andrea Richardson

Andrea Richardson is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research focuses on nutrition epidemiology, including the obesity and nutrition-related disease risk factors and nutrition security. Her research interests include the underlying mechanisms between environment (built and social), behaviors, biology (genetics), and health disparities. Richardson’s recent work has explored the effects of neighborhood improvements, discriminatory mortgage lending, social vulnerability, and school nutrition policy, and food insecurity. She has a Ph.D. in nutrition epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.