Glynwood Institute Advisory Board members

• Michael Conard, Assistant Director, Urban Design Lab; Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University

Michael Conard is a registered architect.  He holds an NCARB certificate, is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design and is a Past Fellow of the Design Trust for Public Space. Mr. Conard has directed numerous studios and studies at the GSAPP and Urban Design Lab. Some of his recent projects include Curbing Childhood Obesity (2008), a design and systems recommendations to address the current obesity epidemic, and Creating a Cultural Corridor: 125th Street (2007), a local cultural sustainability plan.

Michael has directed applied and academic urban design research for over twenty-five years on five continents. His work has bridged urban and architectural design and environmental sustainability with public health, local economic development and equal access.  His work has also been published and exhibited internationally.

• Anya Fernald, Founder and Director, Live Culture Company

Anya Fernald has worked for over a decade with small- and medium-scale food producers and chefs in business and market development and has created innovation in food and agriculture. She has worked on sustainable food projects in over 30 countries. At Live Culture, Anya directs all consulting projects and serves in an advisory role on all Live Culture Productions projects.

Anya began her career developing a business and marketing plan for artisan cheesemakers in southeastern Sicily, Consorzio Filiera Lattiero Casearia. She directed programs for the Slow Food Foundation in Italy, led a Farm-to-School program and a social venture produce distribution company in California as well as the California Buy Fresh, Buy Local Campaign for CAFF. Anya launched the inaugural edition of Slow Food Nation in San Francisco in 2007, serving as the organization’s Executive Director.

She has co-authored two books with Slow Food and has written for numerous publications. Anya is a regular judge on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America and a season judge on the 2009 season of The Next Iron Chef.

• Lynn Hirshfield, Senior Vice President Publishing, Participant Media

Lynn Hirshfield is responsible for launching Participant’s publishing division to complement the company’s films (Food, Inc., Fast Food Nation, An Inconvenient Truth) and social action campaigns. She also leads the development of strategic marketing partnerships for the company’s social action and advocacy campaigns.

Previously, Lynn worked as a development executive for several award-winning productions, including four Emmys, a Peabody Award and two Television Critics Awards—among them the PBS series Wishbone. She was also a story editor for National Geographic Feature Films, Scott Rudin, Norman Lear, Tim Burton and Sony, Fox and Warner Bros. Studios.

She has written two children’s books, Sassafras: True Confessions of a Poodle Princess and the sequel, Sassafras Goes to Hollywood (June 2007).

• Robert S. Lawrence, MD, Center for a Livable Future, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

Robert S. Lawrence, MD is the Center for a Livable Future Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he also serves as Professor of Health Policy and International Health. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine. He is the founding Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, which supports research and develops policies related to the public health impacts of industrial food animal production, improving food security, and adopting healthier diets.

Dr. Lawrence graduated from Harvard Medical School and trained in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a founding director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a human rights advocacy group that shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its work to ban anti-personnel landmines. He has participated in human rights investigations in Chile, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Africa, and Kosovo. He currently chairs PHR’s Board of Directors, serves on the Board of Directors of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, and is a member of the Global Health Advisory Committee of the Open Society Institute.

• Nicolette Hahn Niman, Attorney and livestock rancher

Much of Nicolette Hahn Niman’s time is spent speaking and writing about the problems resulting from industrialized food production, including the book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009) and four essays for the New York Times. She is regular blogger for The Atlantic online, and has written for Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and CHOW.

Previously, she was the Senior Attorney for the environmental organization Waterkeeper Alliance where she was in charge of the organization’s campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry. She lives in Bolinas, California, with her husband, Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, a natural meat company supplied by a network of over 600 traditional farmers and ranchers. They now market the products of their ranch under the name BN Ranch.

• Laura Pensiero, Managing Partner Gigi Hudson Valley, Registered Dietician

As the owner and creative force behind Gigi Hudson Valley (Gigi Trattoria, Gigi Market & Café, and Gigi Catering), Laura Pensiero works with her talented team to provide a bountiful Hudson Valley roadmap to delicious and healthful eating, Mediterranean style! Laura is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, registered dietitian and writer. She co-authored The Strang Cancer Prevention Center Cookbook (McGraw-Hill 2004; Dutton 1998) and her new book, Hudson Valley Mediterranean: The Gigi Good Food Cookbook, (HarperCollins 2009). Laura contributes to numerous national consumer and trade magazines, sharing her flavorful and practical approach to local, seasonal, and healthful eating.

• Simran Sethi, Journalist and Associate Professor, University of Kansas

Simran Sethi is an award-winning journalist and associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications, where she teaches courses on sustainability and environmental communications. She is currently writing a book on contemporary environmentalism to be published by Harper Collins in 2011.

She is the contributing author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy, winner of the bronze 2008 Axiom Award for Best Business Ethics book. Simran is the founding host/writer of Sundance Channel’s environmental programming The Green and the creator of the Sundance web series The Good Fight, highlighting global environmental justice efforts and grassroots activism.

Named one of the top ten eco-heroes of the planet by the UK’s Independent and lauded as the “environmental messenger” by Vanity Fair, Simran has contributed numerous segments to Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNBC, the Oprah Winfrey Show, Today Show, Ellen DeGeneres Show, Martha Stewart Show and History Channel. She is committed to a redefinition of environmentalism that includes voices from the prairie, the inner city and the global community.

• Paul Willis, Manager Niman Ranch Company

Paul Willis is a hog farmer and Manager of the Niman Ranch Pork Company. In 1994, together with Bill Niman, he forged a partnership to sell natural pork from family farms using traditional, humane husbandry. Today he manages a network of over 500 family hog farms.

Paul raises hogs on the Willis Free Range Pig Farm, the farm where he grew up in Thornton, Iowa, about one hundred miles north of Des Moines. He also grows his own non-GMO soybeans, organic alfalfa and oats, which are used for feed and bedding.

Paul has been featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe, The Iowan, Successful Farming, Vogue, Country Living, Bon Appetit and Food & Wine. He is the subject of a chapter in Peter Kaminsky’s book Pig Perfect and has worked with the National Academy of Sciences and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.