Bestselling Author and NY Times Magazine Writer

Ferris Jabr, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of the bestselling Becoming Earth, which reviewers have described as an “infectiously poetic” “masterwork” that “earns its place alongside the best of today’s essential popular science books.” Ferris has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Scientific American and has received fellowships and grants from Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, the Pulitzer Center, and the Whiting Foundation. His work has been anthologized in four editions of The Best American Science and Nature Writing series.

Keynote Address:

Ferris Jabr – Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life 

March 26th | 9:15 am to 9:36 am

Panel Presentations:

The Living Earth

March 26th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Renowned First-Nations Actor and Musician

Gary Farmer, an actor and musician born on Six Nations land along the Grand River, Ohsweken, Ontario, is widely recognized as a groundbreaking figure in the development of Indigenous media in Canada. The founding Director of Aboriginal Voices Radio Network, he was also the Publisher of Aboriginal Voices Magazine from 1993 to 2003. As an actor Gary has been nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male Actor in: Powwow Highway, Dead Man, and Smoke Signals, and, most recently, he is a regular on two popular television series—Resident Alien and Reservation Dogs.

Keynote Address:

Gary Farmer – A Change Has Gotta Come

March 26th | 9:40 am to 10:01 am

Panel Presentations:

Indigenous Forum – We Survived Apocalypse: Lessons in Resilience

March 26th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy
Georgetown University

Michele Bratcher Goodwin, an acclaimed bioethicist, constitutional law scholar, and prolific author, is credited with helping to establish and shape the field of health law. Currently the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and the Co-Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown, Goodwin’s previous positions include: Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding Director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy as well as teaching at Harvard’s Law and Medical schools. Dr. Goodwin, who directed the first ABA accredited health law program in the nation and established the first law center focused on race and bioethics, has won slews of prestigious awards for her scholarship, and her writing has appeared in many of the country’s leading academic law reviews. She is the author/editor of six books, including: Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.

Keynote Address:

Michele Goodwin Keynote Address

March 26th | 11:00 am to 11:22 am

Panel Presentations:

The New Jane Crow: Life in The Post Dobbs Reality

March 26th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Award-Winning Author and Naturalist

Terry Tempest Williams, a writer, educator, and environmental activist known for her lyrical and impassioned prose, is the author of over twenty creative nonfiction books including the environmental literature classic, Refuge – An Unnatural History of Family and Place, and: The Open Space of Democracy, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, When Women Were Birds, and Erosion – Essays of Undoing. Her most recent book is the The Glorians – Visitations from the Holy Ordinary (spring ’26). A Recipient of Guggenheim and Lannan literary fellowships, Ms. Williams’ work has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Progressive, and Orion, and has been translated worldwide. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School.

Keynote Address:

Terry Tempest Williams – The Glorians Are Among Us

March 26th | Noon to 12:24 pm

Panel Presentations:

Nature, Culture and the Sacred: Terry Tempest Williams in Conversation with Nina Simons

March 26th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Farmer, Food Sovereignty Activist and Educator

Leah Penniman, a Black Kreyol farmer, author, mother, and food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for 25 years, currently serves as founding Co-Executive Director of Farm Operations at Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a Black & Brown-led project that works toward food and land justice. She is the author of: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land (2018) and Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists (2023).

Keynote Address:

Leah Penniman – Free the People! Free the Land!

March 27th | 9:40 am to 10:02 am

Panel Presentations:

Food Justice from the Local to the Global: Raj Patel and Leah Penniman in Conversation

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Co-Founder
United We Dream

Cristina Jiménez Moreta, who came to the U.S. from Ecuador in 1998 and grew up undocumented in Queens, New York, is an award-winning community organizer, bestselling author, and leading social justice activist. Co-founder and former Executive Director of  United We Dream (UWD), the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country, she has led multiple national and local campaigns for immigrant justice, including playing a leadership role in the campaign to win and implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). A distinguished lecturer at the City University of New York, Jiménez was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and named one of Time 100’s most influential people. She is the author of a bestselling debut memoir Dreaming of Home (2025).

Keynote Address:

Cristina Jiménez Moreta Keynote Address

March 27th | 10:42 am to 11:05 am

Panel Presentations:

Neighbors and Allies: Solidarity in a Time of Distress

March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Filmmaker and Author
Sugarcane

Julian Brave NoiseCat (member, Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen, and descendant, Lil'Wat Nation of Mount Currie), formerly a political strategist, policy analyst and cultural organizer who played a major role, in, among other achievements, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Alcatraz Occupation and getting Deb Haaland appointed Interior Secretary (the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history), is a writer, journalist, and the first Indigenous North American filmmaker ever nominated for an Academy Award (for his co-direction of Sugarcane). NoiseCat’s journalism has appeared in dozens of leading national publications and has been recognized with many awards. His first book, We Survived the Night, was a national bestseller in Canada and an indie bestseller in the U.S., and Julian is also a champion powwow dancer who played hockey for three of the oldest teams in the game: Columbia University, the Oxford University Blues and the Alkali Lake Braves.

Keynote Address:

Julian Brave NoiseCat Keynote Address

March 27th | 11:40 am to 12:03 pm

Panel Presentations:

Indigenous Forum – We Survived Apocalypse: Lessons in Resilience

March 26th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Technology Journalist and Science Fiction Author

Cory Doctorow, a renowned, award-winning science fiction author, activist, and journalist, is the author of dozens of books, most recently, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, (nonfiction); and the novels Picks and Shovels and The Bezzle. His other notable books include the “solar-punk” novels Walkaway and The Lost Cause, and the tech policy books The Internet Con and Chokepoint Capitalism. Cory also: maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net; works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and is: an AD White Professor at Cornell University; an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate; a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University; a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science; and a co-founder of the UK Open Rights Group.

Keynote Address:

Cory Doctorow – The “Enshittification” of Everything

March 27th | 11:45 am to 12:05 pm

Panel Presentations:

Resisting Enshittification: From Monopolies and Mediocrity to Reviving Democracy

March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Inventor and Co-Founder of the Field of Green Chemistry

John Warner, Ph.D., one of the founders of the field of Green Chemistry who co-authored its defining text “Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice” (with Paul Anastas), is a chemistry inventor and entrepreneur who works to create commercial technologies inspired by nature consistent with the principles of green chemistry. He holds over 350 industrial chemistry patents, and his inventions have served as the basis for several new companies in photovoltaics, neurochemistry, construction materials, water harvesting, and cosmetics. John, who has received many prestigious awards from within the chemistry industry, government, academia and civil society organizations, has had a distinguished academic career, including as a tenured full-professor at UMASS Boston and Lowell. In 2007 he co-founded (with Amy Cannon) Beyond Benign, a non-profit dedicated to sustainability and green chemistry education. He holds academic appointments at Monash University in Australia, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, Somaiya University in India, University of Birmingham in the UK, Rochester Institute of Technology in the US, and Technical University of Berlin in Germany where they have named the “John Warner Center for Start Ups in Green Chemistry.” John also currently serves as CEO and CTO of Technology Greenhouse.

Keynote Address:

John Warner – Biomimicry at the Molecular Level—Inventing a Sustainable Future

March 28th | 9:40 am to 10:02 am

Panel Presentations:

Green Chemistry Innovation and Education

March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Activist, Journalist, and Filmmaker

Raj Patel, an award-winning author, film-maker and academic, is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin who has worked for the World Bank and WTO but also protested against them around the world and testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US, UK and EU governments. A member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems and of the council of Progressive International, he has written extensively for a range of scholarly journals in economics, philosophy, politics and public health and also contributes frequently to a range of other publications, including The Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times, and Scientific American. He is the author of: Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing, and co-author of: A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things and (with Rupa Marya) of: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and The Anatomy of Injustice. His first film, co-directed with Zak Piper, is the award-winning documentary The Ants & The Grasshopper. He also co-hosted the food politics podcast The Secret Ingredient.

Keynote Address:

Raj Patel – Food Solidarity vs Fascism

March 28th | 10:05 am to 10:28 am

Panel Presentations:

Food Justice from the Local to the Global: Raj Patel and Leah Penniman in Conversation

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Leading Indigenous Rights Advocate and Attorney

Samantha Skenandore, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation who previously served as a Tribal Attorney for the Ho-Chunk Nation’s Department of Justice and clerked for the United States Department of Justice, Indian Resources Section, is a founding partner of Skenandore Wilson LLP with 20+ years’ multi-jurisdictional legal experience working with tribal governments and enterprises to build governmental and economic infrastructures across Indian Country. She works in a wide range of legal domains, including: tribal and corporate governance, business transactions, economic development, real estate, cultural resources, water rights, labor issues, and representing clients before members of Congress, congressional committees and federal agencies. Samantha has also been integral to the Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program, helping develop a toolkit to help frame legal considerations for tribal nations to consider adoption of “Rights of Nature" laws.

Keynote Address:

Samantha Skenandore Keynote Address

March 28th | 11:25 am to 11:48 am

Panel Presentations:

Indigenous Forum – Rights of Nature: Rivers as Roads to an Indigenized Legal Future

March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Bestselling Author and Journalist

Michael Pollan is a writer, teacher and activist. His most recent book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, was published earlier this year. He is the author of nine previous books, including: This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all bestsellers. Pollan has taught writing at Harvard and UC Berkeley and has been a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellow. In 2010 Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Keynote Address:

Michael Pollan – A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness

March 28th | Noon to 12:25 pm

Panel Presentations:

The Hardest Problem: What is Consciousness? Michael Pollan and Dacher Keltner in Conversation

March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Co-Founder
Taproot Earth

Colette Pichon Battle, a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, is an award-winning lawyer and prominent climate justice organizer. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Black and Indigenous communities were largely left out of federal recovery systems, Colette led the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy (GCCLP) to provide relief and legal assistance to Gulf South communities of color. After 17 years at GCCLP’s helm, as frontline communities from the Gulf South to the Global South face ever more devastating storms, droughts, wildfires, heat, and land loss, she co-founded Taproot Earth to create connections and power across issues, movements, and geographies.

Panel Presentations:

Water, Spirit, Power

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Executive Director
Spirit Aligned Leadership Program

Tekatsi:tsia’kwa Katsi Cook (Wolf Clan member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), an Onkwehonweh traditional midwife, lifelong advocate of Indigenous midwifery and Native women’s health throughout the life-cycle (drawing from the longhouse traditionalist teaching that “woman Is the first environment”), is Executive Director of the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. Her work over many decades has spanned a range of worlds and disciplines at the intersections of environmental reproductive health and justice, research, and policy. Katsi’s groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mother’s milk revealed the intergenerational impact of industrial chemicals on the health of her community, and she is a major figure in a movement of matrilineal awareness and “rematriation” in Native life.

Panel Presentations:

Indigenous Forum – Women at the Center: A Call to Interdependence

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Natural Resources Secretary
State of California

Wade Crowfoot, on the frontlines of environmental leadership throughout his long career in the public and non-profit sectors, California’s Natural Resources Secretary since 2019, leads efforts to conserve California’s environment and natural resources, overseeing an agency of 25,000+ employees spread across 26 departments, commissions, and conservancies charged with stewarding the state's forests, natural lands, rivers, water supplies, coasts, wildlife and biodiversity, as well as helping oversee its world-leading clean energy transition, including a commitment to conserve 30% of its land and coastal waters by 2030. Secretary Crowfoot has led efforts to navigate California’s record-breaking droughts, floods, and wildfires and has initiated a new era of partnerships with the state's Native American tribes.

Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Atmos

Willow Defebaugh, Brooklyn-based co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Atmos Magazine, an award-winning climate and culture media platform that tells stories about the environment through a lens of creativity, is also the author of The Overview, a deep ecology newsletter and book. A lifelong student of nature who graduated with a degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan, her work has been widely published, including in: Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, Interview, i-D, BBC, The Guardian, them, and New York Magazine.

Panel Presentations:

Wisdom from the Nonbinary: Medicines of Wholeness for Fractured Times

March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Co-Founder and Executive Director
One Step Closer (OSC)

Lara Dickinson, a thought leader in the natural products industry for some 30 years, has catalyzed many collaborations that have reshaped that sector and continue to do so. As co-founder and Executive Director of One Step Closer (OSC), Lara has helped a number of purpose-driven CEOs build and refine regenerative business models. Lara’s long career has included many multiple executive leadership roles, including with the Climate Collaborative, J.E.D.I. Collaborative, OSC Packaging Collaborative, OSC Women’s Circles, and the Purpose Pledge.

Panel Presentations:

The Purpose Pledge: New Visions for “Green” Business

March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

President
One Fair Wage

Saru Jayaraman (JD, Yale, MPP Harvard), an academic at UC Berkeley and a renowned labor activist, is President of One Fair Wage, which organizes to raise wages and end sub-minimum wages nationwide. She has won numerous awards for her activism, including being named: one of CNN’s “Top10 Visionary Women,” a White House Champion of Change, a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award winner, and a San Francisco Chronicle ‘Visionary of the Year.’ Saru, who is interviewed and cited frequently in major media outlets, is author of: Behind the Kitchen Door; Forked: A New Standard for American Dining; and One Fair Wage: Ending Subminimum Pay in America.

Panel Presentations:

State of Emergency: How to Engage Working People in Saving Democracy During an Affordability Crisis

March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Distinguished Professor of Psychology
UC Berkeley

Dacher Keltner, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley, is the host of the Science of Happiness Podcast and the author of many articles and books, including: Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life.

Panel Presentations:

The Hardest Problem: What is Consciousness? Michael Pollan and Dacher Keltner in Conversation

March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Director
Equity Research Institute at USC

Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, currently directs the Equity Research Institute at USC. The inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC, Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has won countless awards for his scholarship and advocacy and is the author or co-author of many books, including: Just Growth; Solidarity Economics; and, most recently (with Chris Benner), Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future.

Panel Presentations:

Neighbors and Allies: Solidarity in a Time of Distress

March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Executive Director
Amazon Watch

Leila Salazar-López has worked for 25+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights and climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns. She has been the Executive Director of Amazon Watch since 2015, leading that organization’s work to protect and defend the bio-cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest in solidarity with Indigenous and forest peoples.

Panel Presentations:

Fossil Fuel Phase-Out and a Just Transition from California to the Amazon

March 26th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Co-Founder
Daughters for Earth

Zainab Salbi, a humanitarian, author, and media host who has dedicated her life to women’s rights and global freedom, is co-founder of Daughters for Earth, a philanthropic fund and a movement focused on supporting, celebrating, and mobilizing women to protect and restore our Earth. At age 23, she founded Women for Women International, which helped more than 460,000 women survivors of war rebuild their lives. Honored with the TIME100 Impact Award, she has been recognized by Oprah Winfrey, People, and Harper’s Bazaar for her groundbreaking leadership on behalf of women worldwide.

Panel Presentations:

Global and Indigenous Women-Led Movements for Climate Justice

March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Project Lead
Mother Tree Project and Program

Suzanne Simard, Ph.D., is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and leads the Mother Tree Project and Program. Her research—showing that forests are cooperative, connected networks—has revolutionized forest ecology. Her TED Talk has reached millions, and her bestselling book Finding the Mother Tree continues to capture global interest. Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2024, she champions regenerative forestry rooted in Indigenous knowledge.

Panel Presentations:

The Living Earth

March 26th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Founder and Editor
The Lever

David Sirota, an award-winning journalist and bestselling author of four books who served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter in 2020, is founder and Editor of The Lever, a reader-supported investigative news outlet, and host of the weekly podcast Lever Time and the audio series Master Plan, whose first season won the 2025 National Press Club and the Signal awards. He also created Audible’s financial crisis podcast series Meltdown, named one of the best podcasts of the year by The Atlantic. Sirota also co-won the Writers Guild of America’s 2022 award for best original screenplay (with Adam McKay).

Senior Scientist
Science and Environmental Health Network

Bio coming soon.

Panel Presentations:

Restoring the Ecology of Health in the Anthropocene’s “Polycrisis”

March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Professor of Law
Fordham Law School

Zephyr Teachout, Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, is a renowned and influential expert on the intersection of corporate and political power. She is the author of Corruption in America, which traces the history of what corruption has meant at different times in our history and, most recently of: Break 'em Up, which makes a case for reimagining the relationship between democracy and antimonopoly law. Zephyr also ran for Governor and Attorney General of New York State, getting the New York Times endorsement in the latter race, and is a leading figure in national antimonopoly and democracy defense movements.

Panel Presentations:

Resisting Enshittification: From Monopolies and Mediocrity to Reviving Democracy

March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm

Author, Advocate, Consultant and Educator

Anna Malaika Tubbs, Ph.D., a bestselling author and leading multidisciplinary expert on race, gender, and equity, translates her academic knowledge into clear and engaging stories that have been widely published in major magazines and newspapers. She is the author of: The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation (2021) and Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us (2025). Anna is also a frequent speaker whose TED Talk has been viewed some 2 million times.

Panel Presentations:

Challenging Oppression at its Deepest Roots

March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm