Mariah Gladstone (Blackfeet, Cherokee) is a food educator and founder of IndigiKitchen, an online platform dedicated to indigenizing diets using native foods. IndigiKitchen "strengthens the ties to our cultures and reminds us of the inherent worth of our identities while fueling our physical bodies". Gladstone has been recognized as one of the 25 Under 25 Leaders in Indian Country, a Champion for Change, and a Grist 50 "Fixer". She will be sharing her perspective on the relationship between cultural identity, health, and native plants during the opening day of the Agroforestry Symposium this year.

Michael Muehlbauer (left) & Alkebu-Lan Marcus (right), orchard directors at the Philadelphia Orchard Project, work with community-based groups and volunteers to plan and plant orchards filled with useful and edible plants in formerly vacant lots, community gardens, schoolyards, and other spaces, primarily in low-wealth neighborhoods where people have limited access to fresh fruit. These urban food forest leaders will share their passion for this work in advance of a regional urban food justice panel, including representatives from the Giving Grove (KC), EarthDance Farms (Ferguson), the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, and Kansas City Growing Growers' New Roots for Refugees.

Rose Hayden-Smith, is an Emeritus University of California ANR Cooperative Extension advisor. Most recently, she served as a UCCE Digital Communications in Food Systems & Extension Educator. She continues to serve as the editor of the UC Food Observer, a communications platform in support of UC's Global Food Initiative. She directed the 4-H program in Ventura County, coordinated the Master Gardener program, and served as the office's first female county director. She also served as the Strategic Initiative Leader in Sustainable Food Systems. She is a published author and practicing U.S. historian, and a nationally-recognized expert in the history of youth/school gardening; Victory Gardens; extension education; and federal policy relating to agriculture/education. A Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, her national advocacy work focuses on encouraging a national effort to promote school, home, and community garden and urban agriculture efforts; public policy relating to food systems, gardening, education, and urban agriculture. You can read her blog at https://rosehaydensmith.com/.

Jim Worstell, Ph.D. Agronomy and M.A. Social Psychology, is Coordinator of the Resilience Project. Jim has more than 30 years' experience developing resilient farming systems in persistently impoverished rural areas-most recently in Madagascar, Armenia, Tanzania, Jamaica, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Uganda, Egypt, Republic of Georgia, Kenya, Ukraine, Moldova and the Delta and Ozarks in the US. He has held teaching and research positions in both 1890 and 1862 Land Grant Universities. https://meadowcreekvalley.wordpress.com/jim-worstell/.