Provocative conversation, delicious food

Jessica Bartholow is a Policy Advocate with nearly two decades of experience in anti-poverty organizing, advocacy and program development at the local, state and national level. Jessica has co-authored several advocate and program guides and led a coalition to support the passage of several pieces of signed legislation that improve public benefits delivery, consumer protections and financial empowerment for low-income Americans. Jessica holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science and is the 2012 recipient of the Wellstone -Wheeler National Anti-Hunger Advocate of the Year Award.

FERN’s Editor-in-Chief, Sam Fromartz is a veteran journalist who focuses on the intersection of the environment, food, and sustainable business. He began his career at Reuters news agency in the mid-1980s, working as a correspondent in Washington, D.C., and as deputy editor for the Reuters Business Report in New York. He is the author of Organic Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew (Harcourt, 2006) about the evolution of the organic foods industry and of In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker’s Odyssey (September 2014, Viking). He lives in Washington, D.C. and blogs at ChewsWise.

Elizabeth Gomez is the Associate Director of Client Services at the Alameda County Community Food Bank, Oakland, CA, where she works with a team of 15 bilingual outreach associates and supervises SNAP outreach subcontracting agencies’ activities throughout the county. She has over 20 years’ experience working directly with low-income communities to improve their health and well-being. She has designed and developed outreach programs to increase access to healthy food for Alameda County’s low-income populations; including outreach for CalFresh/SNAP, Summer Lunch, School Meals, Food Helpline and most recently, the FoodNow.net website.

Alexis Guild is the Senior Health Policy Analyst at Farmworker Justice, a national farmworker advocacy organization in Washington, DC. She works with community/migrant health centers, farmworker community-based organizations, and legal services organizations to ensure access to healthcare for farmworkers and their families across the U.S. She provides analysis and training on federal health policy issues affecting farmworker communities, most notably the Affordable Care Act. Alexis has extensive experience in public health and community organizing. Prior to graduate school, she served as a Health Education Volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps in Guatemala. She has a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

As the senior scientist and director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ricardo Salvador works with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable and socially equitable practices.

Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for food, health, and well-being 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.