Ashwin is an entrepreneur, researcher and engineer from Brooklyn who uses design thinking to fight food waste. As COO of Rise Products, he brings together diverse actors, resources and technology to convert overlooked byproducts into healthy, tasty and sustainable ingredients. He is on the board of a few non-profit organizations, helping them navigate logistical, operational, strategic and technological issues. His previous work was in International Development, focussing on empowerment of disenfranchised women through community building and resilience. Ashwin also worked on analyzing and building multinational organizational culture at Mars Inc. He hails from India, where he studied Mechanical Engineering with a focus on process automation. Ashwin graduated from NYU Tandon with a PhD in Technology Management and wrote his doctoral dissertation on technology and labor in on-demand and algorithmically managed work. He currently teaches technology strategy and entrepreneurship at the New School and at NYU.

Tagan Engel is an organizer, entrepreneur, chef, artist, and mentor who has dedicated her life to the liberation of all people and the planet. She has over 25 years experience across many sectors of the food system as well as in equitable community and economic development. Tagan integrates her knowledge of regenerative food systems, racial & economic equity, and environmental justice to support vibrant community driven work and transformational change. 

For more than a decade, Tagan worked as a chef and entrepreneur in New York City, Boston, and New Haven, CT.  In 2008 she began work on sustainable local supply chains and workers' rights in small businesses and institutions such as Blue State Coffee, New Haven Public Schools, and Yale University. As Community Food Systems Director for CitySeed she ran community-driven food and farm access programs, cooking and garden education, and supported food business entrepreneurship. Through her work on the New Haven Food Policy Council she organized a city-wide network to address food issues, spearheaded the co-creation of the first New Haven Food Action Plan in 2012, and the establishment of the Department of Food Systems Policy for the City in 2016. 

Currently Tagan is a Resident Fellow at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment where she leads work on regenerative food systems, diversity, equity and inclusion, practices for a new economy, and building respectful relationships with local communities. She is also the Executive Producer of The Table Underground radio show and podcast where she records stories on food, radical love, race, and creative social justice. 

Since 2016, Tagan has served on the Board of Directors of Soul Fire Farm, an “Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system”. She also mentors community-based food and social ventures with Collab. Tagan served on the advisory team to establish the ConnCAT Culinary Arts Academy, was a Mentor in Residence to entrepreneurs at the TSAI Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, was invited to the White House by Michelle Obama in her Chefs Move to Schools initiative, and was a 2018 Inspiring Equity in Education Story Fellow with the Graustein Memorial Fund. 

Tagan lives in New Haven, CT with her husband, two children and extended family. She is an Ashkenazi Jew, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors who led a revolt and escaped from the death camp Sobibor. She is also an Iyanifa priestess in the Yoruba Orisa tradition. Tagan can often be found cooking and sharing food, connecting people, and loving up on her community near and far.

Robert Y. Chang is an Emmy-nominated producer and the Coordinating Producer of America ReFramed. America ReFramed is committed to presenting stories that illuminate complex social issues and pose an array of experiences through which viewers can contemplate our past, understand our present, and challenge the reimagining of America’s future. The curated year-round series is broadcast on public television’s WORLD Channel and streams via the PBS app. As a member of the Programming & Production team at American Documentary, Robert contributes to the curation of its award-winning documentary series. He has served as juror, screener, programmer, panelist, and reviewer for a range of film festivals and arts funders. He has also served as juror for the IDA Awards, the Tellys, RTDNA Murrow Awards, and the News & Documentary Emmys. Previously, Robert received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology at NYU for his research on the intersection of religion and media. Robert is also a documentary filmmaker whose work has screened worldwide at festivals and is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources (DER). He is a member of the Producers Guild of America.

Akhil SG is a graduate student in Nonprofit Management with a minor in Global Urban Futures at the New School. He is the founding president of Sahridhaya, a non profit based in Kerala that works for creating social awareness among youth for the last 8 years. He also works as a consultant for initiatives at the intersection of social justice and technology in academic and public institutions.

Before engaging with New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) he was the Technology Fellow at Kerala Startupmission, a state government agency that promotes technology startups and a Researcher in Assistive Technology at International Center for Free and Open Source Software. Having a Bachelors in Engineering he explores the organizational interactions of public institutions through a technology lens. Currently researching New York City’s urban food systems from a neighborhood perspective.

Joanne Scillitoe is the inaugural Paul Jennings Chair in Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Management at California State University Northridge. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Management and an MBA from Rutgers University, a BS in Business Administration from The College of New Jersey, and an A.A.S. degree in Biological Technology from Middlesex County Community College.

She is the 2015-16 Fulbright-SyCip Distinguished Lecturer (Philippines) and a 2018-19 Fulbright Senior Scholar (Spain). Prior to her appointment at CSUN she was a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at New York Institute of Technology and an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at Michigan Technological University. Prior to her academic career, she had over 17 years of life sciences work experience. Her research interests include business incubation processes, technological innovation processes, technology entrepreneurship, socio-tech entrepreneurship and innovation, and interdisciplinary. Dr. Scillitoe's research has won several best paper awards and has been published in top-tier academic journals.

Coming Soon

Rebecca Fox is the Vice President of Programs at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. In this position, she works with a team of 20 to support queer and trans feminist activists around the globe. In her previous role, Rebecca was the Senior Program Officer on the SOGIE team at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. In that position, she coordinated grantmaking on a variety of issues related to increasing the rights of and improving the lived experiences of LGBTI people. Formerly, she was Executive Director of the National Coalition for LGBT Health and an adjunct professor of human sexuality at George Washington University. Rebecca currently serves on the Steering Committee on the International Trans Fund and was previously board chair at Funders for LGBTQ Issues. Rebecca’s other board membership experiences include those of Choice USA, Generations Ahead, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner, Meghan, and her not quite feral cat, Birdie Noodle. She is a women’s record holder for powerlifting in New York State.

Michelle J. DePass is presid ent and CEO of Meyer Memorial Trustand a nationally-recognized leader at the intersection of social, economic and environmental justice. 

Michelle’s journey to the top of Oregon’s second largest private foundation began in her hometown of New York, where she worked as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer. In the ensuing three decades, she has developed a rich interdisciplinary background that includes grassroots community organizing, philanthropy, government and academia. She is known for bringing people together and prioritizing justice for people of color, women, immigrants, indigenous peoples and low-income communities. 

As assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration, Michelle participated in international environmental treaty negotiations and created the Office of International and Tribal Affairs, elevating for the first time the agency's recognition of the sovereign rights of indigenous peoples in the United States. She came to Meyer in 2018 after serving as dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School in New York, shepherding both the program and the university toward environmental stewardship and a greater focus on social justice. 

Born to parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica, Michelle also has strong family ties to Oregon through her husband, Joshua Paulson, a civil rights and defense attorney who grew up in the Corvallis, Oregon area. 

Keesha Gaskins-Nathan is the director for the Democratic Practice–United States program and the Racial Justice Initiative at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Ms. Gaskins-Nathan is dedicated to advancing measures and ideas that improve democratic systems and engage democratic culture in the United States to support full and fair democratic and economic opportunity for all residents.

Ms. Gaskins-Nathan is a long-time organizer, lobbyist, and trial attorney. Prior to joining the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, she was senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, serving as the director of the Redistricting and Representation program. Her portfolio included redistricting reform, voting rights, and elections, with a focus on voter suppression issues. Ms. Gaskins-Nathan is a frequent lecturer and writer on issues related to women and politics, movement building, and democratic transformation.

Ms. Gaskins-Nathan served as executive director for the League of Women Voters Minnesota and the executive director for the Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus. She worked for several years as a civil trial attorney and served as a special assistant appellate public defender for the State of Minnesota.

She is the 2021-2022 Daynard Public Interest Fellow at Northeastern University School of Law, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, 2019 Aspen Ideas Scholar, and 2008 Feminist Leadership Fellow with the University of Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs – Center on Women and Public Policy. She is a frequent commentator on voting rights and redistricting reform and regularly appears on numerous news and public affairs programming, including past appearances on Background Briefing, The Great Battlefield, PBS’s NewsHour, MSNBC, and Bill Moyers.

 Janis Rosheuvel is a Black immigrant woman born in Guyana, South America. For over two decades, she has organized with communities most impacted by injustice, following their lead demanding just and right repair for past and ongoing harms. She is currently the Director of Movement Partnerships and Grantmaking at Solidaire. She worked as Executive Secretary for Racial Justice with United Methodist Women and was formerly Executive Director at Families for Freedom, a national anti-deportation organization center. Janis was a Fulbright Fellow to South Africa, where she documented the struggles of migrants, shackdwellers, and other working class activists. She lectured for five years in the Department of Sociology at John Jay College on the criminalization of migrant life. Janis has served on many boards and currently sits on the NorthStar Fund’s Let Us Breathe Fund Community Funding Committee. She holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England.

 Dr. Kristin Reynolds is Chair and Visiting Assistant Professor of Food Studies at The New School. As a critical food geographer, her work focuses on racial and economic justice dimensions of the global food system. She uses action research approaches to connect research and scholarship to food justice and food sovereignty, with current projects in New York City and Eastern France. Dr. Reynolds also lectures on social justice in the food system at Yale School of the Environment. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography and M.S. in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis.