Speakers

• Dan Kittredge Founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association
  

  Dan Kittredge

  Founder and Executive Director of the Bionutrient Food Association

  An organic farmer for more than 30 years, Dan is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association, an 8 year-old, non-profit, educational organization, whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.” Known as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” Dan has worked to demonstrate the connections between plant health, soil health, carbon sequestration, crop nutritional value, flavor, and human health. Out of these efforts, the Real Food Campaign was born. The Real Food Campaign has engineered the prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer that is designed to test nutrient density at point of purchase, thereby empowering the consumer to choose for nutrient quality. Via this tool, the deeper goal is to connect the economic incentives of consumers to growers to drive full-system regeneration.

• Dr. Carla Portugal Instructor, Mentor, Researcher, and Translator for the Soil Food Web School
  

  Dr. Carla Portugal

  Instructor, Mentor, Researcher, and Translator for the Soil Food Web School

  Dr. Carla Ribeiro Machado e Portugal speaks Portuguese, English, and Spanish while working as a simultaneous translator/interpreter for Portuguese-English, and English-Portuguese. She began her academic career at the Federal University of Uberlândia, graduating in 2004. She then completed a Master’s in Environmental Engineering, relocated to the United States, and completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences after researching the biostabilization of unpaved roads to minimize the impact of hydric erosion. Her research has resulted in 27 empirical listings. Since 2008, Dr. Portugal has served as a co-founder of a consultancy company in Brazil for Environment and Agriculture projects. She consulted with the Brazilian federal government in developing and approving one of the few Category II centers within UNESCO focused on Education for Water management for Portuguese-speaking countries. She also worked for the government of Minas Gerais developing strategies to enhance the abilities of small farmers and settlements to achieve better agricultural practices towards organic and sustainable practices. She served as Environmental Education Supervisor and Environmental Legislation Supervisor at Instituto Inhotim, a significant Botanical Garden in Brazil. Since 2019, Dr. Portugal has served as an Instructor, Mentor, Researcher, and Translator for the Soil Food Web School. Her robust skills consistently guide her international students toward success.

• John D. Liu Filmmaker, Ecologist, founder of Ecosystem Restoration Camps
  

  John D. Liu

  Filmmaker, Ecologist, founder of Ecosystem Restoration Camps

  After 15 years as a Television Producer and Cameraman for CBS News, RAI, and ZDF, John began to study ecology in the mid 1990s. John founded the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP). He also helped to create the China Environment and Sustainable Development Reference and Research Center (CESDRRC) and the China HIV/AIDS Information Center (CHAIN). Over the years, he has produced, directed, written, and presented numerous films. Currently, he is the Ecosystem Ambassador for the Commonland Foundation and the Visiting Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (NIOO/KNAW).

• Ron Weiss, MD Executive Director of Ethos Primary Care
  

  Ron Weiss, MD

  Executive Director of Ethos Primary Care

  Dual Board-certified in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine, Ron Weiss, MD is a primary care physician in New Jersey and New York,
  serves as Executive Director of Ethos Primary Care, and is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Weiss is not only a physician but also a botanist and farmer, and he offers an evidence-based, food-as-medicine approach to healing from chronic illness and optimizing wellness. He has been featured in top media, including The New York Times, The New York Post, The Today Show, New Jersey Monthly, and the feature-length documentary, “Eating You Alive.” A vegan-friendly plant-based doctor, Dr. Weiss prescribes the Ethos Diet, an all-organic, ecologically-sustainable, and Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB) diet, as the cornerstone of his work with patients.  A growing body of research indicates that a whole food plant-based diet helps patients dramatically heal from chronic illness, and Dr. Weiss has found the Ethos Diet to have an exceptional success rate in reversing most chronic diseases as well.