X
Civil Eats’ advisory board is made up of highly regarded individuals considered among the leading thinkers, voices, and connectors in the food world.
Anna Lappé is a widely respected writer and educator, known for her work as an advocate for justice and sustainability along the food chain. The Executive Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Anna is also a national bestselling co-author or author of three books on food systems and a contributor to 18 others. Prior to the Global Alliance, Anna served as the founder and director of the Food Sovereignty Fund of the Panta Rhea Foundation and was the co-founder or founder of three national organizations, including the Small Planet Institute, Small Planet Fund, and Real Food Media.
Magaly Licolli is the executive director and co-founder of Venceremos, a human rights worker-based organization that works to ensure the dignity of poultry workers. Originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, Licolli immigrated to Arkansas in 2004. In 2015, she became the executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center. While there, she led a state-wide poultry campaign which gained national recognition. Her vision to ensure the dignity of poultry workers led her to collaborate with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to expand the worker-driven social responsibility model in the poultry industry. In 2020, Licolli was recognized by the Arkansas Business Publishing Group as one of the 250 Arkansas’ most influential leaders.
Mas Masumoto is an organic peach and nectarine farmer and the author of nine books including Epitaph for a Peach, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, and a family farm cookbook, The Perfect Peach. A feature documentary, “Changing Season,” about the theme of succession on a family farm, was nationally broadcast by PBS in May 2016. He also serves on board of National Endowment for the Arts and the Public Policy Institute of California.
Marion Nestle, Ph.D, M.P.H., is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, in the department that she chaired from 1988 through 2003.
Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist, and academic. He is a research professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa.
Ashanté M. Reese is an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Reese works at the intersection of critical food studies and Black geographies, examining the ways Black people produce and navigate food-related spaces.
Ruth Reichl was editor-in-chief of Gourmet Magazine from 1999 to 2009. Before that, she was the restaurant critic of both The New York Times (1993-1999) and the Los Angeles Times (1984-1993), where she was also named food editor. As co-owner of The Swallow Restaurant from 1974 to 1977, she played a part in the culinary revolution that took place in Berkeley, California. In the years that followed, she served as restaurant critic for New West and California magazines.
A-dae Romero-Briones (Kiowa/Cochiti) was born and raised in Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico and comes from the Toyekoyah/Komalty Family from Hog Creek, Oklahoma on the Kiowa side. She works as director of programs-Native food and agricultural program for First Nations Development Institute and co-founder/director of the California Tribal Fund. A U.S. Fulbright Scholar, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Princeton University, received J.D. from Arizona State University’s College of Law, and an LLM in Food and Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas. President Obama recognized Romero-Briones as a White House Champion of Change in Agriculture.
Ricardo Salvador is a senior scientist and director of the Food & Environment Program at Union of Concerned Scientists. Before UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for Food, Health, and Well-being with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. While there, he partnered with colleagues to create programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice. Dr. Salvador was on the faculty of agronomy at Iowa State University for 18 years.
Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, has written for Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and The New Yorker, among others. He has received a National Magazine Award and a Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for reporting. His books, Reefer Madness, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, and Chew on This, which he co-authored, have been national bestsellers. Fast Food Nation is assigned reading at universities across the country and was adapted to film in 2006. His recent works include Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety (2013), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for History award, and Gods Of Metal (2015).
Shakirah Simley is the Executive Director of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, the former director of the Office of Racial Equity for the City and County of San Francisco, a Fulbright alum, and a food justice advocate. Previously, she has worked in food policy and community development work, and operated an artisan preserves company, and for the past decade, has championed applying a race and gender equity lens to improve the nation’s food system.
Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, and owner of Chez Panisse, has been a champion of local, sustainable agriculture for over four decades. She is the founder of The Edible Schoolyard Project, an innovative model for public education that integrates growing and cooking food into the core academic curriculum. Waters’ vision for edible education began 20 years ago with The Edible Schoolyard at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, which today draws visitors from around the world. To date, there are more than 4,000 Edible Schoolyard Network member programs in 54 countries. Waters is also vice president of Slow Food International and is the author of 14 books, including New York Times bestsellers The Art of Simple Food I & II, 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering, and The Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea.