Speakers
Conference Speakers
Elaine Ingham, PhD
Dr. Ingham has pioneered research in the field of soil biology over the last 4 decades and is widely recognized as the world’s foremost soil biologist. Behind Dr. Ingraham’s user-friendly approach to soil biology lies a wealth of knowledge and research on the different groups of microorganisms that make up the Soil Food Web. Her goal is to empower people to bring the soils in their communities back to life using the science of the Soil Food Web. Dr. Ingham’s revolutionary approach has been used to restore the ecological functions of living soils all over the world, ensuring healthy, strong plants and super-nutritious food whilst eliminating soil erosion and the need for chemical inputs.
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Lindsay Rebhan
A certified permaculture designer, Ecological Design partner and ecological consultant, Lindsay Rebhan is passionate about seeing a client’s property alive with life, employment, learning and nourishment.
A specialist in land use, land design and land management, Lindsay works with farmers, food nonprofits and organizations to increase the ecological, human, animal and economic wealth of land over time.
A graduate of environmental studies at the University of St. Thomas, Lindsay studied food systems and culture in Bangladesh, Cuba and Guatemala. She is a former Program Director at Permaculture Research Institute Cold Climate, and a Program Coordinator at Renewing the Countryside. She also teaches permaculture design courses and is a popular speaker and workshop leader on land regeneration and ecological design.
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Kathleen DiChiara
Nutritional Intelligence Academy
Functional Nutrition practitioner, educator, author
Kathleen DiChiara, FDN-P, INHC, BNI-P
Kathleen DiChiara is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® Practitioner and Integrative Nutrition Health Nutrition Coach. She received specialized training in the biochemistry and specialized diets for autism, allergies, autoimmune and other chronic conditions and is a professionally-trained chef. Kathleen is the President and Founder of Rhode to Health, Inc., Nutritional Intelligence Academy and Nourished2Learn™. In 2014, Kathleen became a best-selling author with her first book, The Hidden Connection, and will soon release her next book End Chronic Disease: The Healing Power of Beliefs, Behaviors and Bacteria with Hay House in February 2020.
As a nutrition educator and researcher, Kathleen has dedicated her work to increase the public’s knowledge about the connection between nutrition and patterns of chronic disease. Her studies and practices aim to address the health of the whole and our interconnection to nature. Her personal journey back to health and her son’s autism recovery serve as the inspiration for her work and a reminder of our innate capacity to heal through the power of our daily choices.
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Dan Kittredge
Bionutrient Food Association
Real Food Campaign
Real Food Campaign
Farmer, founder/executive director of BFA and RFC
Dan Kittredge
Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.”
Dan grew up on Many Hands Organic Farm in central Massachusetts with his parents, Julie Rawson, NOFA-MA Executive Director, and Jack Kittredge, Natural Farmer publisher. After a global career in food and seed activism where he worked with farmers across India, Russia, and South America, Dan returned to the U.S. in 2010 to launch the BFA and ignite a movement around food quality.
Dan has become one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” and works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health through workshops and speaking engagements across the country and globe, and this, the annual Soil & Nutrition Conference.
In 2018, Dan launched the Real Food Campaign (RFC) that, with open-source science partners Our-Sci and FarmOS, are leading the effort to identify and increase nutrition in the food supply. The RFC has engineered and unveiled a prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer, the Bionutrient Meter, designed to test nutrient density at point of purchase and bring transparency to the marketplace. Via the Bionutrient Meter, the goal is to empower consumers to choose for nutrient quality and thereby leverage economic incentives to drive full system regeneration.
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Stephen "Silverbear" McComber
Seed keeper, ceremonial elder, educator and speaker
Stephen “Silverbear” McComber
Stephen McComber, also known as Silverbear, is a longhouse faith keeper from the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory. He has been collecting seeds throughout the Iroquois confederacy for the last 30 years, and is recognized as a keeper of Iroquois seeds in Canada and the USA. The founder of the Haudenosaunee Seedkeeper’s group, Silverbear is known internationally as a traditional seedsaver and a keeper of Iroquois traditional seeds. Silverbear has represented the Six Nations Confederacy at the 2012 conference on Corn in Oaxaca, Mexico. As an Elder, he has worked with inmates at Corrections Canada for the past 10 years, which includes traditional teachings, native ceremonies and traditional gardening practices, where inmates grow indigenous food. This allows inmates to find pride in their work, develop self-esteem and allows for enhanced rehabilitation, just another wonderful aspect of seed saving and knowledge. Silverbear is an avid gardener who protects and shares the knowledge of his people through the techniques and ceremonies that follow the natural cycles of the earth and the moon.
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Kris Hubbard
Kentucky native Kris Hubbard may not have a cell phone, but he isn’t just your ordinary mountain living, overalls-wearing farmer. While he is the founder and owner of Wild Wood Farms and Wild Wood Farms Heirloom Seed Company, he is also a teacher of Ethnobotany and Cultural Anthropology, and a registered Herbalist who practices natural medicine. That’s only a few of his many daily jobs.
Seed companies in the region are hard to come by, but Wild Wood Farms is filling that gap. While the local food movement works to educate consumers about where the food on their plate comes from, Kris takes this sentiment one step further, educating his community about where the seed that grew their food came from. How were the seeds grown? What is the history that brought that particular tomato to your plate? Kris wants to be the farmer and seed supplier “that customers know, that you can see face to face. If you had a problem with your plants you could call us, because you would know us.”
In addition to farming, Kris uses his background in anthropology and ethnobotany to preserve Appalachian and American Indian history and to teach his community about a wide variety of topics including the history, uses, and folklore of many plants.
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Lisa Bloodnick
Lisa is a farmer and seed saver. In addition to her family farm, she helps run the Vestal Farmers Market and belongs to several organizations, including the Experimental Farm Network, aimed at reversing climate change by developing crops and agricultural systems, and Gardens Across America Project, a grassroots networking effort concerned with the loss of biodiversity. Through this network, Lisa now helps maintain close to 20,000 distinct seed varieties and landraces from around the globe.
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Keisha Ryan Williams
Soil Foodweb, Inc.
Greg Austic
Greg is an open technology advocate, principal developer at Our Sci, as well as co-organizer of the Gathering of Open Science Hardware (GOSH) and the Gathering for Open Ag Tech (GOAT). He’s a jack of all trades capable of getting an idea off the ground quickly and inexpensively. Prior to Our Sci, Greg co-founded PhotosynQ, a platform for collecting, sharing, and analyzing plant health data, and the MultispeQ, a low-cost device to measure photosynthesis.
With this background in successful open source technologies, Greg and his team at Our Sci have partnered with the BFA and Real Food Campaign, and will lead the development of the platform and sensors for the Bionutrient Meter.
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We are just starting to build our speaker lineup – stay tuned!