Speakers

Sam Kass serves as Assistant White House Chef and Food Initiative Coordinator at the White House. A Chicago native, Kass graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in US History. During college, he took a job cooking at the restaurant 312 Chicago under Chef Dean Zanella, an experience that set him on his current path. While finishing his final college year abroad in 2003, Kass was trained by one of Austria’s greatest chefs, Christian Domschitz in Vienna.

Kass then continued his culinary education around the globe including New Zealand, Italy and Mexico, before returning to work at Avec in 2006, one of Chicago’s most acclaimed restaurants. Under the guidance of Chef/Owner Paul Kahan and Executive Chef Koren Greiveson, Kass continued to learn techniques of seasonal cooking. Through his experience as a chef and education in the field, Kass' interest in the origins of the food he was cooking grew as did his attention to sustainable and nutritious ingredients. In 2007, Kass opened the personal chef company Inevitable Table, which focused on healthful and nurturing food and that served clientele throughout Chicago.

In January 2009, Kass joined the White House Kitchen staff under Executive Chef Cris Comerford’s leadership as assistant chef, where his responsibilities include preparing daily meals and assisting with larger functions. As White House Food Initiative Coordinator, Kass has continued his focus on sustainable and nutritious ingredients as he helped First Lady Michelle Obama create the first major vegetable garden at the White House since the 1890’s. To date the garden has yielded nearly 1000 pounds of produce that has been used to feed event guests, staff, and the First Family at the White House, with further harvests donated to local food shelters.

In line with the First Lady’s philosophy of using the garden as an educational tool for young people, Kass hosts groups of school children for tours of the garden. He guides the kids through rows of vegetables, talks about how easy it is to start a garden, and answers questions throughout their visit to the White House Kitchen Garden.

When he isn’t in the kitchen or working in the garden Kass is at his desk in the First Lady’s Policy Office where he helps further the First Lady’s work on curbing the spread of childhood obesity and promoting health and wellness activities. As part of this policy team, led by Policy Director Jocelyn Frye, Kass works closely with the Departments of Agriculture and Education as well as works with the White House Domestic Policy Council on these issues.
*bio from StarChefs.com

Juju Chang is the news anchor for ABC's Good Morning America and an Emmy Award-winning correspondent for 20/20 and Nightline. She also hosts Moms Get Real, a digital show for ABC News NOW aimed at cracking the facade of perfect mommyhood.

Chang has covered breaking news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the deadly mine disaster in West Virginia. She received an Emmy Award for team coverage of the California wildfires. She won one of her two Gracies for a 20/20 story on gender equality in the sciences. Her award-winning investigative reports include the case of Hannah Overton, a young texas mother of five sentenced to life in prison for the salt-poisoning death of her foster son, Andrew Burd. She has also examined the juvenile justice system through the case of 11-yearo-ld accused killer Jordan Brown. From 199 to 2000, Chang anchored the early morning newscasts World News Now and World News This Morning.

Chang began her career at ABC News as a desk assistant and eventually became a producer at World News Tonight. She rose to become a correspondent covering such stories as the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya, Hurrican George, and the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. She was based in Washington, D.C. from 1996 t0 1997, where she covered the White House, Capitol Hill and the 1996 presidential election for NewsOne, ABC's afilliate news service. Prior to her assignment in Washington, Chang was a reporter for KGO-TV in Sanfrancisco, where she covered a variety of state and local issues.

Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in California, Chang graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BA in political science and communication. At Stanford, she was awarded the Edwin Cotrell Political Science Prize. Change is married to Neal Shapiro and has three sons. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding board member of the Korean American Community Foundation.

David Elkind is currently Professor Emeritus at the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. He was formerly Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Education at the University of Rochester. Professor Elkind obtained his doctorate at U.C.L.A. and then spent a year as David Rapaport's research assistant at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 1964 65 he was a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Piaget's Institut d' Epistemologie Genetique in Geneva. His research has been in the areas of perceptual, cognitive and social development where he has attempted to build upon the research and theory of Jean Piaget.

Professor Elkind's bibliography now numbers over 500 items and includes research, theoretical articles, book chapters and eighteen books. In addition he has published more popular pieces such as children's stories in Jack and Jill, biographies of famous psychologists in the New York Times Magazine, as well as presentations of his own work in journals such as Good Housekeeping, Parade and Psychology Today. Some of his recent articles include Computers and Young Children, The Authority of the Brain, The Cosmopolitan School, On Becoming a Grandfather, and Thanks for the Memory: Froebel and Montessori.   Perhaps Professor Elkind is best known for his popular books, The Hurried Child, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, Miseducation, Ties that Stress and most recently The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally. In preparation is a new book tentatively entitled, The Stages of Parenthood: Growing up with Our Children.

Professor Elkind is a member of many professional organizations, is on the Editorial Board of numerous scientific journals, is a consultant to state education departments, as well as to government agencies and private foundations. He lectures extensively in the United States, Canada and abroad. He has appeared on The Today Show, The CBS Morning News, Twenty/Twenty, Nightline, Donahue, and the Oprah Winfrey Show. He has been profiled in People and Boston Magazine and was a Contributing Editor to Parents Magazine. Professor Elkind also co-hosted the Lifetime television series, Kids These Days. He is a past President of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Professor Elkind is currently the chief scientific advisor for JustAskBaby, an internet service for parents.

Julie had a sensational soccer career while playing on the USA National Team for 17 years.  During that time she served as captain for 13 years, participated in four Women's World Cups and three Olympics for the USA Team. She is a two-time World Cup Champion and three time Olympic medalist.  Julie finished her National Team career with 45 goals, 59 assists and 272 international appearances.  She has since been inducted into the US National Soccer Hall of Fame. Julie was recently named as one of the "100 Most Influential NCAA Student-Athletes." The NCAA defines the 100 Most Influential Student-Athletes as those who have made a significant impact or major contributions to society.

 Julie has also made quite an impact off the field.  She was recently named one of the “100 Most Influential NCAA Student-Athletes.” She has served on the Women’s Sports Foundation Board of Directors for seven years, two of those years she served as President.  While at WSF, she spent her energy advocating Title IX, and childhood obesity and athletes’ rights issues. Julie also has been instrumental in a number of women's rights and child labor issues around the world. The world governing body of soccer, FIFA, awarded her the FIFA Fair Play Award, the first woman and American to receive the award, for her work against child labor in the stitching of soccer balls.
 

 Julie founded the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy (JFSLA) in 2006, along with her husband Ian Sawyers. The JFSLA is a unique residential camp experience that uses sports as the vehicle to teach leadership skills for life. In 2006, Julie also founded the Julie Foudy Leadership Foundation (JFLF), a nonprofit public charity. The mission of the Julie Foudy Leadership Foundation is Building on a foundation of sports and fitness, we empower young women from all socioeconomic backgrounds to become leaders who positively impact their communities.

She is currently an analyst for ABC/ESPN and the NBC Olympics, director of her Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academies, motivational speaker, and proud mother of two children, Isabel and Declan. 

John Gomperts has amassed unmatched success in both government and the nonprofit sectors. He is beginning an encore career at the Corporation, where he served as the Chief of Staff for the Corporation's former CEO, Harris Wofford. Most recently, he served as the President of Civic Ventures, an initiative to promote the engagement of millions of experienced baby boomers in encore careers in senior leadership positions in both government and the nonprofit sector. Gomperts also lead Experience Corps, a nonprofit designed to recruit and engage people over 55 as tutors and mentors in urban public schools. Prior to joining Civic Ventures and Experience Corps, Gomperts served in a variety of positions including Chief Operating Officer at Public Education Network; the first legislative director for Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania; and deputy director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee, working for Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and John Kerry of Massachusetts. Before heading to Capitol Hill, Gomperts practiced law and clerked for a federal judge.

Pedro Noguera is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development at New York University.  He also serves as the Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings (IGEMS).  Noguera is an urban sociologist and his scholarship and research focus on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions. From 2000 - 2003 Noguera served as the Judith K. Dimon Professor of Communities and Schools at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 1990 – 2000 he was a Professor at the Graduate School of Education and the Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley.

Pedro Noguera has published more than 150 research articles, monographs and research reports on topics such as urban school reform, conditions that promote student achievement, youth violence, the potential impact of school choice and vouchers on urban public schools, and race and ethnic relations in American society. 

His work has appeared in several major research journals and many are available online at inmotionmagazine.com.  He is the author of several ground-breaking books, including: The Imperatives of Power: Political Change and the Social Basis of Regime Support in Grenada (Peter Lang Publishers, 1997), City Schools and the American Dream (Teachers College Press, 2003), Beyond Resistance (Routledge, 2006); Unfinished Business: Closing the Achievement Gap in Our Nation’s Schools (Josey Bass, 2006). His most recent book is The Trouble With Black Boys and Other Reflections on Race, Equity and the Future of Public Education (Josey Bass 2008) (Winner of Critics Choice Award American Educational Studies Association and the Schott Foundation award for research on race and gender). 

In 2008 Noguera was appointed by New York Governor David Patterson to serve as a Trustee for the State University of New York (SUNY).  He is a frequent commentator on educational issues on CNN, National Public Radio and other news outlets.  He also serves on the board of several local and national education and youth development organizations.

Dr. Yancey is a professor at UCLA and directs her department's leadership doctoral degree (DrPH) program. She is also co-director at UCLA Kaiser Permanent Center for Health Equity. She returned to academia full-time in 2001 after five years in public health practice, first as Director of Public Health for the City of Richmond, VA, and as Director of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

Dr. Yancey was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the Washington, DC-based Partnership for a Healthier America, the nonprofit organization guiding and supporting First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to end the childhood obesity epidemic. She is the immediate past chair of the board of directors of the Oakland, CA-based Public Health Institute, having served on this board for a decade. She recently joined the board of directors of Skokie, Illinois-based Action for Healthy Kids.  She was also a member of the USDHHS Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, the IOM Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity and Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity Committees, and the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Yancey completed her undergraduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Northwestern University where she was the starting center on the varsity basketball team, her medical degree at Duke, and her preventive medicine residency/MPH at UCLA.  She is a basketball enthusiast and poet/spoken word artist published in the public health journals Preventive Medicine and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and several newspapers. Her book of poetry and art, a collaboration with artist Todd Berrien, An Old Soul with a Young Spirit: Poetry in the Era of Desegregation Recovery, was published in 1997 and sold out of its first printing of 2000.  Her spoken word music CD, a collaboration with musicians Ciro Hurtado and Kim Jordan, was released in 2001. 

Her second book, Instant Recess:  Building a Fit Nation -- 10 Minutes at a Time (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA), will be released in September 2010.