Expert Resource Directory

State University and head of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU. Mike is affiliated with the Departments of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies; Crop and Soil Sciences; and Food Science and Human Nutrition. His appointment encompasses teaching, the Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension. The work of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU is focused on small and medium scale family farm viability, equal access by all members of a community to a healthy diet, and dispersing animals in the countryside. Prior to moving to MSU he was Dean of Academic and Student Programs for Cook College, Rutgers University. As a faculty member at Rutgers University he was co-founder and director of the New Jersey Urban Ecology Program, an effort that brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds to address sustainable food systems in New Jersey. He was also faciitator for the New Jersey Cooperative Gleaning Network since 1998 and the founding director of the Cook Student Organic Farm from 1993 to 1998. He was board member and board president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey. He does research in the areas of community food security, community and sustainable food systems.

Sustainable Agriculture Systems at College of the Atlantic. Molly has focused her career on food systems issues, from the perspectives of farmers, consumers, businesses and NGOs. She is especially interested in effective multi-stakeholder collaborations for sustainability. Her professional writing and speaking is on food security, food politics, food rights, food sovereignty and sustainability metrics. She was a Coordinating Lead Author on the North America/Europe section of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development.Before coming to COA, Molly consulted for several years on science and policy for social justice, ecological integrity and democratic food systems. Prior to that, she held two interim positions at Oxfam America 2002-2005 and a faculty position at Tufts University, where she taught, administered programs, built partnerships and conducted research for 14 years. She co-founded the Agriculture, Food and Environment Graduate Degree Program in the School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts and directed its first five years, during which she established the curriculum and joint programs. She also directed Tufts Institute of the Environment for two years. She was a national Food & Society Policy Fellow 2002-2004, and currently is a Senior Wallace Fellow at Winrock International. Molly serves on several advisory boards related to sustainable agriculture and food systems. She is a Standards Committee member of the ANSI Sustainable Agriculture Standards initiative, administered by the Leonardo Academy. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.

Campaign at AFOP. She has long been an active advocate for migrant farmworker children’s rights and continues to raise awareness of migrant farmworker issues across the country in her current role. Lopez has also had the opportunity testify to Congress and has appeared on national news outlets on issues related to child labor in agriculture. In addition to her years of experience as an advocate, she has invaluable firsthand experience with farmworker issues.

food systems and the author of Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All. His experience in the philanthropic sector includes more than 15 years as program director for Food Systems at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He also played an essential role in the establishment of the Michigan Food Policy Council and has made significant contributions to the funding of healthy food and farming via his leadership of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders group. Prior to starting the Fair Food Network, Dr. Hesterman was the inaugural president of Fair Food Foundation, leading their sustainable food systems programs. Prior to his work in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, he researched and taught forage and cropping systems management, sustainable agriculture, and leadership development in the crop and soil sciences department at Michigan State University in East Lansing.A former fellow in the Kellogg National Fellowship Program (KNFP) and the National Center for Food and Agriculture Policy in Washington, D.C., he has published more than 400 reports and articles on subjects ranging from cover crops and crop rotation to the impact of philanthropic investments on food systems practice and policy. Dr. Hesterman earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of California, Davis, in plant science/vegetable crops and agronomy, respectively. He received his doctorate in agronomy and business administration from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.

and businesses with expert project development, writing, research, and facilitation.passion for the strength and necessity of community-based economies has led her from family farm roots to a career of telling the local business story as a professional journalist and policy advocate. She was previously a program director at the Michigan Land Use Institute, a statewide public interest advocacy group based in Traverse City, Michigan. She was a member of the 2008-2009 class of Food and Society Fellows.

Ricardo Salvador works with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable practices. Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for Food, Health, and Wellbeing with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this capacity, he was responsible for conceptualizing and managing the Foundation’s food systems programming. He partnered with colleagues to create programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice. Dr. Salvador also worked as an extensionist with Texas A&M University. Prior to his stint at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, he was an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University (ISU). While at ISU, Dr. Salvador taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a Land Grant University, which was distributed nationally via satellite beginning in 1989. He conducted some of the initial academic research on the “community supported agriculture” model of agriculture. He worked with students to establish ISU's Student Operated Organic Farm in 1992. He worked with other faculty to develop the nation’s first Sustainable Agriculture graduate program in 2000; Dr. Salvador served as the program’s first chair. Dr. Salvador earned his undergraduate degree in agricultural science from New Mexico State University. He holds an M. S. and Ph. D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University.

Coalition (NSAC), which is an alliance of grassroots organizations that advocates for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food systems, natural resources, and rural communities. Prolman has advocated for a more sustainable approach to agriculture for nearly a decade. She is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and a member of the DC Bar. She has advocated for a more sustainable approach to agriculture for nearly a decade.

Dakota State University. Dobbs retired from SDSU in 2007, after 29 years of service in research, teaching, extension, and international programs roles. Dr. Dobbs’ research during the last 20 years of his career at SDSU focused primarily on the economic and policy conditions necessary to foster sustainable farming and food systems. He has devoted a great deal of attention to agri-environmental policies in the U.S. and the European Union. Dobbs was a Visiting Scholar at the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture in 1993, where he conducted research on policy options for the 1996 U.S. farm bill. In 2000, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Essex, in England, conducting research on agri-environmental policies in the United Kingdom. Since then, he has also studied agri-environmental policies in France, where he has twice been a short-term Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Agronomique de Toulouse. His work has focused on how the multifunctionality agri-environmental policy approaches being used in the European Union might be applied in the U.S. One of the U.S. agri-environmental programs Dobbs conducted research on at SDSU was the Conservation Security Program, which was changed to the Conservation Stewardship Program in the 2008 farm bill. Dr. Dobbs grew up on a diversified crop and livestock farm in eastern South Dakota. His Ph.D. in agricultural economics is from the University of Maryland. His dissertation was based on 1967-68 field research in India on the Green Revolution. Dobbs began his professional career as an Assistant Professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wyoming, and then he joined the Foreign Service as a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) economist in Islamabad, Pakistan and Washington, D.C. After four years with USAID, Dobbs joined the economics faculty at SDSU in 1978. Dobbs has authored public policy columns for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Grist, and Treehugger. At present, he writes an ‘Economic Policy Perspective’ column for The Dakota Day. He was a member of the 2007-2008 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.