LAMiracleMile

Confirmed Speakers

• Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno
  Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno lead Future Cities Lab, an experimental design and research practice based in San Francisco, California and Athens, Greece. Since 2002 the pair have collaborated on a range of award-winning projects exploring the intersections of design with ecology, high-performance craft, responsive technologies and public space. Most recently they were awarded the New York Prize by the Van Alen Institute and the 2011 New York Architectural League Prize for Young Architects. Their HYDRAMAX project is currently featured in the Utopian Impulse show at SFMOMA (through 7/29/12), and their interactive Data Grove public installation will be a featured in the San Jose Zero1 Biennial opening in mid-September. They also teach architecture and design in the Bay Area at CCA and UC Berkeley.
• Jonathan Todd
  Jonathan Todd is co-founder with his father of John Todd Ecological Design and has helped to bring Dr. Todd’s discoveries to a commercial scale. He has worked with The Omega Institute to develop the concept for the Omega Center for Sustainable Living. He was lead designer for JTED throughout the design, construction and implementation of this Living Building Challenge” and LEED platinum award winning project. As president of JTED, it has been Jonathan’s mandate to bring robust large-scale ecological wastewater solutions to the global community, recognizing that affordability, reliability, and aesthetic presentation were the keys to entering a competitive market against the conventional technologies. As a personal mission, he has a keen interest in developing sustainable water solutions for refugee populations throughout the world.
• John Marshall
  John Marshall is a mathematical biologist with strong quantitative skills and multi-disciplinary background in laser physics, genetics, ecology and disease dynamics. He is currently doing research at Imperial College London where he studies malaria and genetically modified mosquitoes. He is a freelance journalist and conducts surveys and teaches courses on bio-safety issues related to GMOs in Africa. Other interests include DJing, journalism, human rights, swimming and vegetarianism.
• Tara Kolla
  Tara Kolla is a former systems analyst-turned publicist turned city farmer after she and her partner, Beat Frutiger, purchased a ½ acre property in Sliver Lake in 2001. She started Silver Lake Farms in 2004. She helped launch Urban Farming Advocates five year later. This organization, it’s teammates and supporters – thanks to Eric Garcetti and City Council – introduced the Food & Flowers Freedom Act in 2010 for the benefit of residential farming in the city of LA. Her Silver Lake farms grows flowers and loofah sponges for market on less than an acre and with help from WWOOFers, volunteers and farmhands, grows microgreens for local restaurants and operates a small but popular CSA program in Silver Lake and Pasadena that supports sustainable family farms close to home. Silver Lake Farms also manages growing food for families in LA, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Studio City and Malibu
• Ken and Kathy Lindner
  Ken and Kathy are multi-talented grassfed bison ranchers and founders of Lindner Bison. First generation sustainable farmers without an agricultural background, Ken and Kathy moved from corporate to country over an 18-year period of trial and error, learning and triumph. Prior to ranching, Ken and Kathy spent 30 years inside corporate America. While Kathy worked mostly in marketing and investor relations, Ken worked in Quality and Reliability for industries such as computers, medical device manufacturing and industrial robotics. In later years, he helped many of them achieve ISO9000 certification.
• Valerie Delahaye
  Valerie has worked as 3D manager for Digital Domain, production supervisor at BUF and now make, inc., working on many award-winning videos, commercials and such films as Titanic, The Twilight Saga, The Hangover, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to name a few. Valerie and her husband, Rusty, now operate their own visual effects studio -- Make Inc --. When her first child started preschool, she discovered that neither lunch nor snacks were provided. Having learned how to eat independently and how to appreciate food and how to cook in preschool in France she decided to take a stand. Through her research and background as computer geek, she decided to put together a simple website to help busy parents make better choices for their children’s lunchboxes. This is how “SNACKS AND LUNCH.com” was created. Valerie and her husband Rusty are now the parents of two companies and two beautiful, healthy, nutritionally balanced, food-savvy boys.
• Laura Avery
  Laura Avery has been Manager/Supervisor of the Santa Monica Farmers Markets since 1982. In 1997 she helped to institute the first ever farmers market to school Salad Bar in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District. She has served on the California Direct Marketing Advisory Committee, as President of Southland Farmers Market Association, and co-sponsored (with national non-profit organization Family Farmed.org) the Good Food Festival and Conference in 2011, the first ever farmer trade show in California. Laura's "Market Report" can be heard every Saturday morning on "Good Food", KCRW's award-winning weekly food show.
• Nicolette Hahn Niman
  Nicolette Hahn Niman is an attorney and livestock rancher. She and her husband were featured in an August 2009 TIME magazine cover story about America’s food system. Much of her time is spent speaking and writing about ecologically friendly farming and the problems resulting from industrialized food production. Her writings include the book "The Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food BeyondFactory Farms", six essays for the New York Times, and one for the Los Angeles Times. She is regular contributor to TheAtlantic.com, and has written for The San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Cowboys & Indians, Earth Island Journal, and CHOW. She lives in Bolinas, California with son and her husband, Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, a natural meat company supplied by a network of over 700 traditional farmers and ranchers. They now market the products of their own ranch under the name BN Ranch.