Riya Mehta

Riya Mehta, from Overland Park, Kansas, is pursuing a JD at Stanford Law School and a master's degree in environment and resources in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in earth systems and a minor in Spanish. Riya is passionate about empowering agricultural communities and aims to help governments design tools that help farmers and ranchers not just survive but succeed. She began her career working on the 2018 Farm Bill as a John Gardner Public Service Fellow for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. She then led the agriculture and environment portfolio for U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta. Most recently, Riya served in the Biden-Harris administration as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, where she worked to develop and implement pandemic assistance, disaster relief, conservation, and farm loan programs.