Stephanie Jerger | Vice President of Administration, Organic Trade Association (discussion leader)
Jade M. Algarín | Environmental Justice/Community Organizer, St. Croix Environmental Association
Nicole Fabricant, PhD | Associate Professor, Towson University
Nicole Fabricant is an associate professor of anthropology at Towson University. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2009. Her participatory action research has focused for a decade on environmental injustice in South Baltimore and the youth movement for fair development. Her book "Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore" will be out this Fall 2022 with University of California Press.
Brian Williams, PhD | Assistant Professor, Geography, Mississippi State University
Dr. Brian Williams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University. Dr. Williams is a broadly-trained human geographer whose work brings together political ecology, critical race scholarship, environmental justice, and agri-food geographies. His research traces the political, cultural, and ecological dimensions of agricultural and environmental change in the United States South. Focusing on the development and legacy of cotton plantation agriculture in the United States South, alongside rich histories of agrarian resistance and community development, his work examines the ideas about race and nature which shape pesticide usage, the continuities between plantation agriculture and contemporary industrial agriculture, and the implications of Black geographies for contemporary agro-environmental justice.
Amber Sciligo, PhD | Director of Science Programs, The Organic Center
Dr. Sciligo first joined TOC in 2018 and has been instrumental in supporting the Center’s project implementation and has successfully led TOC’s grant-writing program. She has 15 years of large-scale project coordination and management experience, and over a decade of experience in major funding acquisition and management and in coordinating diverse stakeholders to accomplish highly collaborative research. She has also co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications while at TOC, including a piece on how shifts in species interactions and farming contexts affect birds and a study of the effects of arthropod communities on organic strawberry crops.
Eugene Pickett | Regional Coordinator, National Latino Farmers & Ranchers
Mr. Pickett is the Owner-Operator of Black Farmers and Ranchers New Mexico, Regional Coordinator for the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association, a member of the National Rural Coalition/ Coalición Rural, New Mexico Food & Agriculture Policy Council, New Mexico Farmers Marketing Association, Albuquerque NAACP, and the New Mexico African American Chamber of Commerce. Eugene Pickett grew up in East LA where the community practiced urban farming. The African Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish and Latinos had gardens, fished, hunted, had livestock and bartered and traded these commodities as a way of life. Later growing up in Pasadena/Altadena Eugene enjoyed the country lifestyle of this area. The Pickett family was instrumental in developing a Community based Enterprise that had a ranch, youth development, security company, Martial Arts Studio, community farm/garden and entertainment enterprise and a commodities firm. With his move to New Mexico Eugene’s family became fully engaged in New Mexico farming and ranching as a lifestyle. Most recently this has brought Mr. Pickett into food systems development and advocacy, where he is working to gain access to available resources for historically discriminated against small farmers and ranchers from the socially disadvantaged class.