National Speakers

Greg Sarris, Ph.D., current Chairman of Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, holds the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Endowed Chair at Sonoma State University, where he teaches courses in Creative Writing, American Literature, and American Indian Literature. Formerly a full professor of English at UCLA, and then the Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University, Greg is the author of several books, including Grand Avenue (1994), an award-winning collection of short stories, which he adapted for an HBO miniseries and co-executive produced with Robert Redford. (www.gratonrancheria.com)

Nikki Henderson, 27, Executive Director of People's Grocery in Oakland, CA.  Since 2010, is an award-winning activist in the food and social justice fields. In 2009, Henderson co-founded Live Real, a national collaborative of youth food movement organizations. Previously she worked with Van Jones and Phaedra Ellis Lamkins at Green for All and at Slow Food USA in Brooklyn, NY. Passionate about youth leadership development among communities of color from a young age, she directed Foster Youth Empowerment Workshops.  During college, she became a leading student advocate for statewide environmental justice. (www.peoplesgrocery.org)

Carol Jenkins, an Emmy-winning former television journalist who anchored and reported the news and hosted her own talk show in New York City for many years, is a sought-after speaker and writer on issues relating to the media, specifically the participation of women and people of color, women's participation in the political and economic structures in the U.S., and the health of women in developing countries, especially in Africa. Founding President and board member of The Women's Media Center, the groundbreaking non-profit aimed at increasing coverage and participation of women in the media, she conceived the Progressive Women's Voices media leadership program, and acquired and expanded the largest portfolio of women experts in the country, SheSource. Carol Jenkins is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of AMREF USA, The African Medical & Research Foundation, based in Nairobi, the largest health NGO in Africa. She is  also the co-author of an award-winning biography of her uncle, Black Titan: A.G.Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire. (www.caroljenkinsmedia.com)

Michael Brune, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club since 2010, holds degrees in Economics and Finance, and came to the Sierra Club from the Rainforest Action Network, where he served seven years as Executive Director. Under Brune's leadership, Rainforest Action Network won more than a dozen key environmental commitments from America's largest corporations, including Home Depot, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Kinko's, Boise, and Lowe's. He is the author of Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal (2008). (www.sierraclub.org)

Saturday, October 20: 

Bill McKibben, described as the 'planet's best green journalist' (Time magazine) and 'perhaps America's most important environmentalist' (Boston Globe), is the award-winning author of a dozen seminal books on the environment, including The End of Nature (published in 1989), generally regarded as the first book for a general audience about global warming. He is the co-founder of the highly effective global climate campaign 350.org, which last year led the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years in this country, in which 1,253 people were arrested in an effort to slow construction of the Keystone Pipeline. He is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont.  (www.350.org)

Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is the Executive Director of GreenFaith, a groundbreaking national interfaith environmental coalition, as well as an award-winning spiritual writer and nationally recognized preacher on the environment. He was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2011. (www.greenfaith.org)

Marina Silva, one of 11 children in a small, poor community of rubber tappers in the Amazon region of Acre, Brazil, orphaned at 16, worked as a maid, made her way through university and became a political leader, creating Acre's first workers' union, working with the legendary Chico Mendes to fight deforestation. She became the first rubber tapper and youngest senator in Brazil's history (in 1994) and eventually became Brazil's Environment Minister under President Lula, before running for the presidency as the Green Party candidate in 2010 garnering 19.4% of the vote. She has won a slew of prestigious awards, including as a "Champion of the Earth" by the UN Environment Program, and is widely considered one of the most important environmental leaders on the planet. She is the President of Instituto Marina Silva. (www.minhamarina.org.br)

Gretchen Daily, Ph.D., an internationally renowned, major award-winning pioneer in developing new approaches to harmonizing conservation and development, is Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology, Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment, and Director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford. She is also co-founder of The Natural Capital Project, an international partnership whose goal is to improve the well-being of people and the environment by mainstreaming the values of nature into major resource decisions. Daily's work spans scientific research, teaching, public education, and working with leaders to create innovative and practical approaches to environmental challenges. (www.stanford.edu)

Gabor Maté M.D. is a physician, public speaker and author, published internationally in twenty languages. His most recent book is the award-winning bestseller, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. His previous books offered a bio-psychosocial perspective on attention deficit disorder and on mind/body unity in illness, and he has co-written a work on child development and parenting. He regularly addresses health care professionals, teachers, psychologists, child-care workers and lay audiences across North America. (www.drgabormate.com)

Sunday, October 21: To be shown at a later date in a neighborhood near you. Come to our Launch Party to find out more, 1:30-3:00 PM in Milliken Auditorium!

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., is a biologist, author, and 2011 recipient of a Heinz Award for her research and writing on environmental health. She donated the $100,000 cash prize to the fight against hydraulic fracturing, convening a grassroots coalition, New Yorkers Against Fracking. In 2010, her book on the environmental links to cancer, Living Downstream, was released as a documentary film. Her most recent book is Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. (www.steingraber.com)

Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, has been organizing immigrant women workers since 1996. In 2000 she helped start Domestic Workers United (DWU), a New York-based organization that spearheaded the passage of the state’s historic Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, and out of which the National Domestic Workers Alliance was formed. Ai-jen serves on the boards of Momsrising.org, National Jobs with Justice, Working America, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and is the Co-Director of the new Caring Across Generations national coalition. She has won numerous awards, including the Ms. Foundation Woman of Vision Award. (www.domesticworkers.org)

Ethan Nadelmann, JD, Ph.D., is the founder and Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading organization in the United States advocating for drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health, and human rights. A former professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton, he is the author of Cops Across Borders and (with Peter Andreas) Policing the Globe, as well as countless articles on drug policy in leading publications. Ethan Nadelmann is widely regarded as the foremost proponent of drug policy reform in the U.S. and internationally. (www.drugpolicy.org)

Paul Hawken is a world-renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, activist, journalist, and author whose work has included starting ecological businesses, writing about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs. He is the author or co-author of seven globally influential books, including the bestselling classics,The Next Economy, The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, and Blessed Unrest. Paul, who founded some of the first natural food companies in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods, presently heads OneSun, Inc., an energy company focused on ultra low-cost solar based on green chemistry and biomimicry. He is also founder of the Natural Capital Institute (www.naturalcapital.org), a research organization that created Wiser Earth (www.WiserEarth.org), an open source networking platform that links NGOs, foundations, business, government, social entrepreneurs, students, organizers, academics, activists, scientists, and citizens concerned about the environment and social justice. He has served on slews of boards of leading environmental organizations and won countless prestigious awards. (www.paulhawken.com)

Stay tuned in the coming months as National Bioneers highlights more exciting speakers and programs.