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Michael Dimock is an organizer and thought leader on food and farming systems and heads Roots of Change (ROC) a project of the Public Health Institute. ROC develops and campaigns for smart, incentive-based food and farm policies that position agriculture and food enterprises as solutions to critical challenges of the 21st century. Since 2006, Michael has been spawning and leading education and policy campaigns, community dialogues and creative engagements with government and corporate leaders to advance regenerative food and farm policies and practices that make agriculture and food enterprises solutions to critical public health challenges of the 21st century. His leadership has rendered one new law and funding program at the federal level and three new California laws that included two new funding programs and five successful budget requests. As a result, nearly $400 million in funding for improved nutrition has flowed to CBOs. He has been a player in passing regenerative agriculture policies that have resulted in $500 million in funding to provide farmers with incentives to reduce emissions and/or capture carbon and retain water in the soil and reduce the use of toxic chemicals. He is the host of the podcast Flipping the Table featuring honest conversations about food, farms and the future. Author, Katrina Fried, and Photographer, Paul Mobley, feature Michael in their book, Everyday Heroes: 50 Americans Changing the World.
He began his career in 1989 as a sales executive in Europe for agribusiness and in 1992 founded Ag Innovations Network to provide strategic planning for companies and governments seeking healthier food and agriculture. In 1996, he founded Slow Food Russian River and, from 2002 to 2007, he was Chairman of Slow Food USA and a member of Slow Food International’s board of directors. Michael’s love for agriculture and food systems grew from experiences on a 13,000-acre cattle ranch in Santa Clara County in his youth and a development project with Himalayan subsistence farmers in Nepal in 1979. In the 1980s, he was a campaign worker for California Governor Jerry Brown. Michael earned a BA in History with Honors at UCLA and a Master International Affairs at Columbia University. |
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Lesley serves as the Policy Director for Roots of Change and as the Policy Advisor for the Center for Wellness and Nutrition at the Public Health Institute. She is responsible for identifying and analyzing policy issues related to nutrition, health, and regenerative agriculture at the local, state, and federal level using both a health equity and food system framework. She is advocating for policies in Sacramento and Washington DC.
Previously, she was the Interim Deputy Director at the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, Teachers College, Columbia University. There, she provided strategic policy recommendations for ongoing research projects and led advocacy campaigns related to nutrition policy and nutrition education programs.
Before joining the public health field, Lesley spent 11 years practicing law in New York City at Cooley LLP and as in-house counsel. Prior to law school, she worked at the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. She has a B.A. in Government from Smith College, M.S. in Nutrition and Public Health from Teachers College, Columbia University, and J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School.
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Doris brings various business and management experiences to her position as Program Manager with Roots of Change. For close to a decade, she directed an international education business and later worked as an organizational development consultant and business coach. She was recently involved in a start-up company focused on building a story-telling platform for mission-driven brands to help consumers reconnect to the origins of the food they eat and make more ethical purchasing choices. She is very committed to facilitating the growth and success of Roots of Change and its community and to reaching the goal of establishing a sustainable, climate-smart food system in California by the year 2030.
Doris received a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from New College of California and a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology from Golden Gate University. She grew up in a small farming town in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, is bi-lingual in German and English and speaks conversational French and Spanish. She worked in Switzerland for several years as an account manager with clients from all over Europe and has lived in England, France and Colombia. She has called the Bay Area her home for the past twenty-five years and is an avid photographer, traveler and cook…and loves to eat! |
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Dr. Raissa Sorgho
Director of Global Nutrition and Partnerships
Dr. Sorgho leads the design, development, and execution of three global human-centered food and nutrition programs in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Latin America. She investigates international policy and program application to the USA context to advance key markets, support sustainable agriculture, and protect the health of agricultural workers. Furthermore, Dr. Sorgho manages partnership growth, client development, and oversees the alignment of leadership strategies with health equity principles. Her international experience and expertise guides ROC’s expansion of work to include international projects related to nutrition and regenerative agriculture.
She completed her undergraduate studies at Bucknell University (USA), holds a master’s in public health and a doctorate in global health from Heidelberg University (Germany). Her expertise includes health (nutrition and heat), climate change (adaptation and sustainability), and policy (review and implementation), with an emphasis on evidence-based decision making. She has professional experience in conducting qualitative political economic analyses in southeast Asia, investigating the association between reducing greenhouse gas emissions and health co-benefits in western Europe, and implementing agro-biodiversification and nutrition randomized control trials in east and west Africa. |
