KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Sheila Maddali, Director, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Pennsylvania, Co-Director of the Tipped Worker Resource Center

Sheila Maddali is the Co-Director of Restaurant Opportunities Center United Tipped Worker Resource Center. She has over a decade of organizing experience and now works as a movement lawyer, using a combination of innovative legal and organizing strategies to push boundaries and advance the fight for justice in the restaurant industry.

Steve Hitov, General Counsel, Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Steve Hitov is a graduate of the New York University School of Law. He has 40 years experience as a Litigation Director and Managing Attorney in legal services programs in New York, Massachusetts and Florida, and for the past 21 years has also served as the General Counsel of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a widely-acclaimed Florida-based human rights organization that has, through development and implementation of its Fair Food Program, pioneered the concept of Worker Driven Social Responsibility (WSR). Mr. Hitov has negotiated binding agreements ensuring supply chain transparency and accountability with over a dozen of this country’s largest corporate purchasers of produce. These agreements form the legal foundation for the Fair Food Program, a unique collaboration among workers, growers and retailers that has created a better, more sustainable tomato industry, one that, among its many other human rights advances, now boasts a workplace that is free of the forced labor and physical sexual harassment that has plagued the American agricultural sector for decades.

BREAKOUT PANELS

Alianza Agricola Representatives Luis Jimenez and Victor Hernandez

Agricultural Alliance is a group of immigrant workers and allies in the Genesee Valley region of New York State. Their goal is to organize around getting petition signatures to obtain driver's licenses for all of the people who are undocumented in New York State. They are a part of the statewide campaign “Green Light: Driving Together.”

Enrique Balcazar, Migrant Justice Organizer

Enrique Balcazar has worked on Vermont dairy farms for over three years. He now works for Migrant Justice, an organization that seeks to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights. Balcazar works as the lead farmworker organizer.

JJ. Bartlett, President, Fishing Partnership Support Services

J.J. Bartlett is the President of Fishing Partnership Support Services, a non-profit that improves the health and well-being of fishing families. The Boston Business Journal named J.J. a “40 under 40” honoree in 2008 and in 2013 he received the Offshore Mariner’s Wives Association’s award for his service to the industry. J.J. holds a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Boston University.

Whitney Benns, Consultant, Triad Consulting Group; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law

Whitney Benns is an educator, writer and consultant working at the intersections of systemic justice, conflict, and negotiation. She teaches negotiation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Georgetown Law Center, and teaches difficult conversations skills within organizations for Triad Consulting. She has written for the Atlantic, the Guardian, and OnLabor.org, about issues including prison labor, municipal courts and debtors’ prisons. Whitney also serves as a fellow with the Systemic Justice Project at HLS.

Deborah Berkowitz, Senior Fellow, Worker Safety & Health, National Employment Law Project

Debbie Berkowitz has a long and distinguished track record in the field of occupational safety and health. Prior to joining NELP in 2015, she served as senior policy advisor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and prior to that she was OSHA’s chief of staff. Before joining the public sector, Berkowitz spent over 20 years building and leading worker safety and health programs inside the labor movement.

Paola Macas Betchart, Worker Rights Advocate, Worker Justice Center of NY & Board member of Farmworker Women National Alliance

Paola is an Environmental Anthropologist from Quito, Ecuador. Over the past ten years she has researched and worked on issues related to human rights, indigenous rights, and the rights of nature in Ecuador and in the US. Paola recently advocated with EPA representatives in a successful campaign for the new EPA Worker Protection Standard on pesticides. She is currently a worker rights advocate with the Worker Justice Center of New York, a nonprofit that provides legal representation, education, and advocacy to agricultural and other low-wage workers. She is also a steering committee member of the Finger Lakes Occupational Health Services in Rochester, NY and the National Alliance of Farmworker Women.

Laurie Beyranevand, Vermont Law School Professor of Law

Laurie J. Beyranevand is a Professor of Law, the Senior Faculty Fellow of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, and Senior Fellow of the New Economy Law Center at Vermont Law School. In addition to teaching, she recently directed several grant funded projects for the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems. She has published a number of scholarly articles and book chapters that focused on the connections between human health and the food system.She is an appointed member of the Academic Programs Committee for the Food and Drug Law Institute, and formerly served as an Executive Committee Member of the Agriculture and Food Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools.

Alexandre Galimberti, Senior Advocacy & Collaborations Advisor, Oxfam America

Alex Galimberti is a food professional turned activist. After ten years working in restaurants he became an organizer and advocate for workers in the food system. In his current role as Senior Advocacy & Collaborations Advisor at Oxfam America Alex works building partnerships with workers and advocates to support better conditions for the people who produce, process, and prepare our food. The current campaign that he works on is called Lives on the Line and it uses innovative multi-stakeholder strategies to call on the poultry industry to improve working conditions for the 250,000 workers processing the chicken and turkey meat that we eat. Prior to joining Oxfam Alex worked at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and also volunteered supporting different food workers and immigrant workers groups. He holds a certificate in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY and a Master Degree in Food Studies from Boston University.

Kathy Hessler, Clinical Professor of Law and Animal Law Clinic Director Director, Lewis & Clark Law School

Kathy Hessler is a clinical professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School. She is the first and only faculty member hired to teach animal law full time in a law school. She graduated with a J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary and received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Claire Fitch, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future Food Policy Program Manager

Claire Fitch manages the Food System Policy program at the Center for a Livable Future—an academic center based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her work focuses on the public health and environmental impacts of food animal production, in addition to food procurement and labor issues in the food system. She holds a MSPH in Human Nutrition from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a former U.S. Borlaug Fellow in Global Food Security.

Keith Harmon, Owner, Casa Verde, Tres Gatos, Centre Street Cafe.

Keith Harmon has worked in restaurants for 26 out of the last 30 years, with two year breaks working as an antenna designer/microwave engineer and a professional skydiver respectively. Most of the last 10 have been focused on financial accounting with a heavy dose of beverage programming and hospitality coaching. Keith owns three restaurants in partnership with David Doyle and Maricely Perez-Alers: Tres Gatos, Centre Street Cafe, and Casa Verde. Keith is the architect of hospitality administrative fees and the accounting policy of adding fees that are distributed exclusively to back of house kitchen staff, used at all 3 of our restaurants starting 12/1/2015 and recently being adopted across the city.

Rebecca Jenkins, Aquatic Animal Law Initiative Fellow, Lewis & Clark Law School

Rebecca Jenkins is the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative's first Fellow. Rebecca was born and raised in Ireland where she studied Law at Trinity College Dublin School of Law before moving to Oregon for her Animal Law LL.M degree at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Miguel Keberlein Gutierrez, LAF Chicago Director of IWR

Miguel Keberlein Gutierrez is the Director of the Immigrants and Workers’ Rights Practice Group at LAF Chicago. He has been litigating cases on behalf of migrant farmworkers and other low-wage workers for over a decade. Keberlein was named the 2016 Paul and Sheila Wellstone Award recipient for his work on anti-human trafficking issues by the Freedom Network USA. He was also chosen as one of the 40 under Forty Attorneys to Watch in Illinois for 2010.

Mujeres Divinas Representatives Dolores Bustamante and Juana Cruz

Mujeres Divinas (“Divine Women”) is a women’s group member of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas that aims to empower farmworker and former farmworker women.

Aurora Moses, Vermont Law School Clinical Assistant Professor of Law Professor

Aurora Moses leads the Food and Agriculture Clinic at Vermont Law School and teaches a food and agriculture clinical seminar. She previously litigated with the Center for Food Safety and was a judicial clerk at the Oregon Court of Appeals. Professor Moses holds an LL.M. in animal law from Lewis & Clark Law School; a J.D. and certificate in environmental law, also from Lewis & Clark; and a B.A. in linguistics from Reed College.

María Beatriz Pugliese, Researcher and Projects Coordinator in the National Institute of Agriculture Technology

María Beatriz Pugliese is a researcher and projects coordinator in the National Institute of Agriculture Technology (INTA), and a professor in Viticulture and Phytopathology at the National University of San Juan and in the Master degree in Viticulture and Enology at the National University of Cuyo. She is Agronomist and Master in Viticulture and Enology. She is committee member of scientific magazines, congress, thesis defense and thesis advisor. She trains student and farmers.

Cathy Ruckelshaus, General Counsel and Program Director, National Employment Law Project

Cathy Ruckelshaus joined NELP in 1995, after working for the Employment Law Center in San Francisco. For over 20 years, she has litigated and advocated for policy reforms promoting the workplace rights of immigrant and non-standard workers (part-time, temporary and subcontracted workers), enforcement of wage and hour and workplace laws, and anti-discrimination and family and medical leave laws. She has litigated class action lawsuits in state and federal court and authored several amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeal. In 2003, she was honored by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York for successfully litigating on behalf of New York City’s immigrant workers, and in 1989 she was a Skadden Fellow.

Joanna Wohlmuth, Manager, Juliet

Joanna joined Juliet as cafe manager shortly after the restaurant opened in February 2016. She is nearly as passionate about Juliet's pastries as she is about creating a sustainable employment model in the foodservice industry. Her previous experience includes cooking at Oleana (Cambridge, MA) and Rose's Luxury (Washington, DC) and baking at Forge Baking Company (Somerville, MA).

Omaid Zabih, Staff Attorney – Immigrants & Communities Program, Nebraska Appleseed

Omaid Zabih is a Staff Attorney with the Immigrants & Communities Program at Nebraska Appleseed. Omaid’s work mainly focuses on developing positive policy and legal changes related to immigration and to improve the safety and health of meatpacking workers. Prior to Appleseed, Omaid worked as a congressional staffer in Washington, D.C., for Senator Ben Nelson. He earned a B.S. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a J.D. with distinction from the University of Nebraska College of Law.

TALKS

Nicole Civita, University of Arkansas School of Law & Sterling College Affiliated Professor of Law / Faculty in Sustainable Food Systems

Nicole Civita is the Director of the Food Recovery Project and an Affiliated Professor with the LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas. She is also Faculty and Assistant Director of the Rian Fried Center for Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems at Sterling College, where she organizes the School of the New American Farmstead. Using a multidisciplinary, solutions-oriented approach that pairs legal expertise with hands-on food craft, Nicole's scholarship and teaching focus on food conservation, justice, and resilience, planning for place-based and community-driven food systems, and the power and limits of a market-based food movement. She holds an LL.M. in agricultural and food law from the University of Arkansas School of Law, a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center, and an AB from Columbia University.

Claire Fitch, Program Manager, Food System Policy Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

Adriel Hsu-Flanders, Harvest Manager, Siena Farms

Adriel has been the harvest manager for the past three years at Siena Farms, in Sudbury, MA, where he worked with other young, beginning farmers, and helped to develop an apprentice farmer training curriculum. Currently he is working on a new farm-to-table restaurant project in North Adams, MA. He studied the anthropology of food and gender at Reed College.

Margiana Petersen-Rockney, UC Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management PhD Student

Margiana grew up on a dairy goat farm in Massachusetts. While studying geology and biology at Brown University she started a five-acre diversified vegetable and livestock farm. In 2009 she founded the Young Farmer Network. She has also worked at the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project and the Boston Farming Institute training new farmers. In 2015-16 as the Harvard Food Literacy Project manager she organized the first two Just Food Conferences and developed a food systems fellowship program. In graduate school Margiana studies policy and management issues at the intersection of climate change, agricultural practices, and beginning/limited resource farmer livelihoods.

FILMS

Laura Pacheco and Jackie Mow, Documentary Producers, East of Salinas.

Laura Pacheco and Jackie Mow are documentary producers living on the East Coast. Their work has appeared on PBS-NOVA, the World, Independent Lens, Nation Geographic, The Discovery Channel, Capitol Hill and Classrooms around the world.

POSTERS

Jimena Andrieu, Researcher and Professor, National Institute of Agriculture Technology and Agricultural Economics at the National University of San Juan. Jimena Andrieu is a researcher in the National Institute of Agriculture Technology (INTA), and a professor in Agricultural Economics at the National University of San Juan.

Vera Chang, Doctoral Student, University of California Berkeley.

Vera Chang is a doctoral student in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on social inequities in agricultural labor systems. Vera’s work has been highlighted in the NYT, Aspen Institute, and Civil Eats.

Mark Chatarpal,Indiana University, Bloomington & IU Food Institute Associate Instructor & PhD Student

Mark Chatarpal is a PhD student in Food Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. His doctoral work examines the monocropping of Cassava (Manihot esculenta) within the Caribbean Community (commonly known as CARICOM) and the potential impact on Indigenous well-being, specifically in Guyana's hinterland. Mark has worked alongside several food justice movements in Ghana and the Caribbean and recently participated on an expert panel on food security at CARICOM’s inaugural conference on Indigenous Land Rights in Belize.

Aliyar Fouladkhah Assistant Professor, Tennessee State University

Aliyar Fouladkhah is an assistant professor and director of Public Health Microbiology Laboratory of Tennessee State University. He is a graduate of Regulatory Affairs track and Public Health programs of Yale School of Public Health. Current extramural funding support from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture is appreciated by the author of the presentation (USDA NIFA project TENX-2016-07430). Content of the current publication does not necessarily reflects the views of the funding agency.

Jack Hornickel, Business Planning and Legal Specialist, GrowNYC

Jack Hornickel, Esq. is an attorney with the GrowNYC Greenmarkets, representing the interests of farm businesses and food entrepreneurs. His practice includes transactional services, regulatory compliance, and counsel on a variety of issues, specializing in agricultural labor and land use. He is admitted in the State of New York and Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Erika Inwald, National Coordinator, Domestic Fair Trade Association.

Erika is a food justice and food policy expert who has worked with many different organizations throughout the agricultural supply chain. She has organized food service workers with the UNITE HERE labor union, strengthened a coalition of emergency food providers in Chicago, and assisted with policy analysis and communications at the National Family Farm Coalition. Erika received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University and is currently working toward a Master’s degree from New York University.

Michelle Miller, Associate Director, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, Univ of WI - Madison

Michelle Miller is at the UW-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, the sustainable agriculture research center. She is a practicing economic anthropologist with degrees in landscape architecture (emphasis: regional planning, restorative ecology), and on sustainable development (emphasis: culture of agriculture). In the 1990s, Michelle worked for World Wildlife Fund on pesticide reduction. Current projects focus on labor and land tenure, agriculture of the middle and regional food economies, food freight logistics, resiliency and climate change.

Vanessa Zboreak, Wake Forest University School of Law Professor of the Practice

Vanessa Zboreak is Professor of the Practice at Wake Forest University School of Law and the Graduate Programs in Sustainability. Her courses include Food Law and Administrative Law. Her research explores the impact of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on communities, and proposes legal solutions promoting sustainable land use and agricultural policy. Additionally, she is President of the Yadkin Riverkeeper, an organization advocating for a North Carolina watershed impacted by the proliferation of poultry CAFOs.

EXHIBIT TABLES

Julia Scheier, Operations Director, Salvation Farms

After a year of serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA member with Salvation Farms to build capacity in the Vermont Commodity Program, Julia was hired into a temporary Program Assistant position and recently promoted to Operations Director. Julia provides critical support to the Executive Director on all aspects of our work including program implementation, growth, and assessing the effectiveness and impact of our programs. Originally hailing from Massachusetts, Julia holds a M.A. in Sustainable Development from SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, with a focus on nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship. Prior to her time at Salvation Farms, Julia gained employment experience with a small-town co-op, an inner-city preschool, and a 45-acre organic farm, helping to organize the washroom, CSA pack-out lines, and weekend farmer's markets.

Timothy Tucker, Chef, The Salvation Army

The Culinary Arts Training Program was created by Chef Timothy Tucker at The Salvation Army Center of Hope in Louisville, KY in 2005. He has brought that successful formula to Boston to offer free job skills training in the culinary arts to non-traditional students.

Leah Varsano, Research Fellow, Oxfam

Leah Varsano is a Research Fellow for Oxfam's US Domestic Program. She works primarily on the Poultry Worker Justice Campaign and acts as a liaison between the campaign and university students taking action against unjust labor practices in the American poultry industry. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Sustainable International Development at Brandeis University.

Nina Vizcarrondo, Alaska Native Sisterhood 2nd Vice President, Camp 4

Nina Vizcarrondo graduated with a B.S. in Nutrition and Food Studies from New York University. She now resides in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and son and focuses on being an activist for food rights. Her work with the historic civil rights organization, Alaska Native Sisterhood, has included spearheading a Subsistence Committee to fight for the rights of modern day hunter gatherers in Alaska.

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

Alyssa Chan

Alyssa Chan first became interested in small-scale, sustainable food systems while working on an organic farm and winery in Argentina. After working on urban farms and in community gardens and studying food policy in school, her primary focus has shifted to food justice and equity issues, especially food security and sovereignty, labor in the food system, and equitable access to land and capital for farmers. As Program Coordinator at the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, Alyssa contributes to and helps to manage the farm bill research consortium, focusing on equity for socially disadvantaged and beginning farmers, and works on the clinic’s food waste initiative. Alyssa graduated from Harvard College in December 2016 with a joint degree in Chemistry and Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Carolyn Chelius

Carolyn is a 2016 graduate from Wellesley College who received a dual degree in Economics and Environmental Studies. Her coursework included a semester abroad in Italy where she studied their history and culture of food. She has experience coordinating student groups and events, most especially around Wellesley's chapter of Slow Food and through internships with several city-based food organizations in Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston. Most importantly, she has a deep enthusiasm for learning about and exploring food. In addition to coordinating the FLP and its Fellows, Carolyn oversees our Farmers' Market at Harvard and the Harvard Community Garden.

Steven Gonzalez

Steven is a third-year student at Harvard Law School and current President of the Harvard Food Law Society. While at HLS, Steven has worked with the Food Law & Policy Clinic and is an Executive Article Editor for the Harvard Law & Policy Review. He has spent his summers pursuing applications of food law to legal practice at the non-profit Conservation Law Foundation and the law firm Polsinelli in Washington DC. Steven is originally from Southern California, where he graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with a degree in Philosophy and an emphasis in Ethics & Public Policy

Christina Rice

Christina Rice is a Clinical Fellow in the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, where she provides legal and policy guidance to community advocacy groups, state agencies and nonprofits who are working to improve the food system. Christina co-leads the Clinic’s Food Waste Reduction Initiative, which advocates for policy change to decrease unnecessary food waste. She also leads the Clinic’s Sustainable Food Production Initiative, which works to assist small-scale and sustainable food producers and food entrepreneurs with breaking into local and regional markets. Christina is licensed to practice law in North Carolina.

Olivia Smith

Olivia is a third-year student at Harvard Law School and the Conference Chair for the Harvard Food Law Society. She began exploring her interest in food law while participating in the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic for two semesters. During her time in the Clinic, Olivia helped revise resources for local advocates and food policy councils and contributed to a report exploring the possibility of a National Food Strategy. She also attended the first Food Law

Student Leadership Summit, held at Harvard Law School, after which she helped form and served on the executive board of the first national Food Law Student Network.