Justine Oesterle usually goes by JJ. She received her B.A. in Environmental Science and Minor in Spanish at Pitzer College, Claremont, CA. At Pitzer, she managed The Grove House, a student run locally sourced café and meeting place for a variety of student groups. Her academic work at Pitzer focused on soils and sustainable agriculture, including ecological and social issues. After graduation, Justine worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where she wrote programs to analyze and validate OCO-2 satellite data.
Justine moved back to Minnesota in the summer of 2015 to pursue her interests in urban agriculture and work at Urban Organics, an aquaponics facility, and Urban Oasis, a non-profit in St. Paul. In the spring, she started as a full time master's student in the UMN’s Natural Resource Science and Management Program.
Justine is involved in projects at the UMN focused on innovative urban farming techniques and measuring the larger scale impact of local producers and vendors in the Twin Cities. She is currently working on developing a verification system for regenerative poultry production in Northfield, MN, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, as well as conducting surveys at farmers markets city wide with a group she helped start called the Data Harvest.
In addition to getting her master's, Justine teaches high school life sciences at a charter school with Spark-Y, a non-profit that empowers youth through science education and aquaponics.