Expert Resource Directory

Oxford University, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has been a visiting scholar at Yale, and is now both a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for African Studies, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, and the New York Times and international bestseller, The Value of Nothing. He has also co-authored Food Rebellions with Eric Holt-Gimenez and Annie Shattuck, and co-edited Promised Land, with Peter Rosset and Michael Courville. His work on sustainability, food, and economics has been translated into over a dozen languages. He has also published widely in the academic press, with articles in peer-reviewed philosophy, politics, sociology and economics journals. He works in support of a range of social movements, including the international peasant movement La Via Campesina, and the Abahlali baseMjondolo Shackdweller Movement South Africa. As a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, he has testified in front of US Congress on the origins of the 2008 food crisis, and continues to advise the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He has lectured on subjects ranging from agriculture, climate change, and social movements to slums and fast food to governments, universities, unions, progressive groups and the media in the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. He has appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, PBS, DemocracyNow!, and has written for the Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Observer, The Nation, Atlantic Monthly Food Channel, NYTimes.com, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, among others. He is a member of the 2011-2013 class of IATF Food and Community 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.

local and slowest foods of all: the ones we grow and prepare ourselves. He is Founding Director of Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a nonprofit network of 4,900 gardeners from 90 countries who are taking a hands-on approach to local foods systems development. Roger also works to promote vibrant local, state and regional food systems through his work with the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) and the Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine (ELFC). In addition to his advocacy and organizing work, Roger is a freelance writer and public speaker specializing in gardening and sustainable cuisine. His articles on food, agriculture and gardening have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Organic Gardening magazine, and Saveur. He is a contributing editor for Mother Earth News. Although grounded in his own local food system, Roger remains interested in and connected to international food issues. Roger first became involved in food issues in Europe as head of Friends of the Earth's European office in Brussels during the 1990s at the height of the Europe's mad cow madness. He was also part of the American NGO delegation to the last UN World Food Summit. He enjoys cooking, gardening and eating with his three Belgo-American boys Francois, Maxim and Sebastian, and his wife Jacqueline. He was a member of the 2008-2009 class of Food and Community Fellows.

agriculture since 2003. As a board member of Just Harvest USA, he works closely with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based farmworker organization headquartered in Florida. From 2004-2007, Sellers lived in Immokalee and served as a national co-coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance. The CIW's Campaign for Fair Food uses creative methods to educate consumers about human rights abuses in the agriculture industry, the need for corporate social responsibility, and how consumers can help workers realize their social change goals. He was also a member of the 2009-2010 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

waves in both the film industry as well as environmental awareness. As the creative director of her own production company, 7th Empire Media, Shalini creates imaginative films inspired by true stories to engage new audiences in the most vital issues of our time. Working with a variety of social movements, she uses the distribution of her films to advocate effectively for real social change. Her most mainstream appearance was in the Fox television series created by Steven Spielberg, "On the Lot," to find Hollywood's next great director. Shalini finished in the top 10 out of over 12,000 filmmakers and received critical acclaim from industry legends. Shalini received the honor of a William D. Fulbright Fellowship to create a documentary about how street theater has impacted social issues in India. Her recent film, "A Drop of Life," brought the mounting global water crisis into a dynamic futuristic film that continues to garner awards and inspire communities to take action on water rights. She was a member of the 2009-2010 class of Food and Society Policy Fellows.

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.

stakeholders and other change leaders to build collaborative partnerships. Her work today stems from her successful transformation of children’s food options in the New York City school system. She is a public health nutrition scholar as well as a skilled, experienced facilitator of large-scale institutional change across a variety of sectors. More than a decade ago, she developed the CookShop™ Program, a now-beloved food and nutrition education program in New York City schools that connects classroom education and school meals with regional farms. A longtime faculty member of Teachers College at Columbia University, Toni works with graduate students to deepen their understanding and engagement with food reform. She has collaborated with the Sustainable Food Lab, to “translate” European institutional food procurement change models for the United States. She serves on the Advisory Committee for the National Farm-To-School Network and is also the founder of the NYC Nutrition Education Network and is on its leadership team.

Systems Funders (SAFSF), a project of Community Partners. SAFSF is a national group that works to foster communication, shared learning and information exchange about issues connected to sustainable agriculture and food systems among funders. Previously, Virginia held the position of Senior Analyst and Regional Director Assistant for Asia and Africa in the system-wide office for the University of California’s, Education Abroad Program, coordinating university-level student exchanges. From 1995 – 2000, Virginia worked for the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria where she was a program director and coordinated the Seminar’s outreach to Latin America. While at the Seminar, she directed programs for emerging world leaders on a wide array of issues including food security, sustainable agriculture, international non-governmental organizations, and leadership. Fluent in Spanish, Virginia has a Masters in International Administration from the School for International Training and a B.A. with honors in Spanish from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

ex-corporate sales leader and now farmer, has become recognized as among the preeminent thinkers of our time on agriculture and food policy. The founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc., a farm and community food center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Will is widely considered the leading authority in the expanding field of urban agriculture. At Growing Power and in community food projects across the nation and around the world, Will promotes the belief that all people, regardless of their economic circumstances, should have access to fresh, safe, affordable and nutritious foods at all times. Using methods he has developed over a lifetime, Will trains community members to become community farmers, assuring them a secure source of good food without regard to political or economic forces. In 2008, Will was named a John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation Fellow and was awarded a prestigious foundation “genius grant” for his work – only the second farmer ever to be so honored. He is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and in February 2010, he was invited to the White House to join First Lady Michelle Obama in launching “Let’s Move!” her signature leadership program to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in America. In May 2010, Time magazine named Will to the Time 100 World’s Most Influential People.