Kathryn Lynch Underwood is a city planner with the Detroit City Council Legislative Policy Division. She has been a planner for over 20 years, with areas of expertise including land use policy, urban food systems, zoning, and sustainable redevelopment policy. Her current work includes formulating urban agriculture codes and policies for the City of Detroit. Kathryn also helped create the Detroit Food Security Policy, sits on the Detroit Food Policy Council, and is a member of the Michigan Association of Planning Food Systems Policy Planning Committee. She is a founding member of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Kathryn was a presenter at the 1st Global Summit on Metropolitan Agriculture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in September 2010 and has participated in U.S. study groups in both The Netherlands and Italy related to agriculture and food systems. She represented Slow Food USA as a delegate at Terra Madre in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Kathryn is the co-chair of the newly formed Slow Food Detroit Central City chapter and member of the Ark of Taste Midwest group

Kathryn has bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and a Masters in Urban Planning from Wayne State University. She is a life-long resident of Detroit.