Presenter Biographies ERIC ADJEPONG is chef at Chef Adjepong LLC. (Washington, DC) @chefericadjepong BRAD BARNES ‘87, CMC is director of consulting and industry programs at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY. Brad is responsible for the oversight of all operational consulting, ProChef® certification, and custom professional training. His clients include Google, U.S. Department of Defense, and Stanford University. Brad is the author of two books and the creator of food concepts such as Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn and The Pythian Market in New Orleans. Previously, he served as senior director of culinary education and senior director of continuing education at the CIA. Before joining the education administration, he was the president of GigaChef, LLC and chef/owner of B&B Solutions. Brad is a Certified Master Chef, one of 66 in the United States, a Certified Culinary Administrator, and an inductee of the American Academy of Chefs, the American Culinary Federation’s honor society. (Hyde Park, NY) SCOTT ALVES BARTON, PHD is a faculty fellow in race and resilience in Notre Dame's Institute of Advanced Studies. Scott's home is in Harlem, where he teaches as an assistant adjunct professor at New York University and area universities. He holds a PhD in food studies from NYU. He had a 25-year career as an executive chef, restaurant and product development consultant, and culinary educator. Scott is on the board of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, is secretary of the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, is a steering committee member for the James Beard Awards, and co-chair of the African Diaspora Religions Unit for the American Academy of Religion. Scott has been a public foodways scholar at Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee. His research and publications focus on the intersection of secular and sacred cuisine as a marker of identity politics, cultural heritage, political resistance, and self-determination in Northeastern Brazil, and the 19th-20th century U.S.A. (New York, NY) @senhorokra CAROLINA BAZÁN is chef-owner of Ambrosia and Bistro Ambrosia in Santiago. (Santiago, Chile) @chinoise MICHAEL BELTRAN is chef-owner at Ariete. (Miami, FL) LILLA BERNAL is assistant professor at The Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio, where she dedicates much of her time to researching ingredients and traditions of the Texas- Mexico borderlands. (San Antonio, TX) *** SUBJECT TO CHANGE *** 2021 Worlds of Flavor Presenter Biographies | Updated October 24, 2019 | Page 1 of 5 © 2021The Culinary Institute of America. All rights reserved. RYAN BROSSEAU is executive chef at Dear Margaret. Ryan brings a passion for preservation and pickling, whole-animal butchery, and bread baking to Dear Margaret. His menu pays homage to his French-Canadian mémé (grandmother) Margaret, with a nod to the farmers and purveyors from whom he sources high-quality local ingredients. A self-professed “old-fashioned cooking dude” who believes food culture is crucial to understanding who we are, he is dedicated to the details that elevate familiar flavors to accessibly innovative, inherently satisfying, and nourishing. Originally from Canada—he grew up in Merlin, Ontario, an hour east of Detroit—Ryan moved to Chicago in 2010 to pursue cooking and devoted time to working in the kitchens of Perennial Virant, Found, and Table, Donkey and Stick. He served as opening executive chef for Le Sud, earning city-wide accolades and recognition. Ryan opened Dear Margaret with owner Lacey Irby in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood in January 2021. (Chicago, IL) ERIK BRUNER-YANG is a two-time James Beard Foundation Award nominee, the chef-owner of Maketto and ABC Pony in Washington, DC, and the founder of Power of 10 Initiative. In 2015, he opened Maketto, a communal marketplace and lifestyle brand combining retail, restaurant, and café located at 1351 H Street NE. Maketto was selected as one of Eater’s 21 Best New Restaurants in America and is DC’s New Restaurant of the Year by RAMW. Erik and his restaurants continue to receive rave reviews both locally and nationally from Bon Appétit, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Eater, and many more. (Washington, DC) GREG DRESCHER is vice president of strategic initiatives and industry leadership at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). He oversees the college’s leadership initiatives for the foodservice industry, including academic and other strategic partnerships, conferences, invitational leadership retreats, digital media, and other global initiatives. He is the creator of the college’s Worlds of Flavor International Conference & Festival (now in its 23rd year), as well as a portfolio of health and sustainability leadership initiatives including Menus of Change and Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives, jointly presented by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative, co-led by the CIA and Stanford University in association with more than 50-plus leading colleges and universities; and the annual Global Plant-Forward Culinary Summit and Plant-Forward Kitchen digital media platform. Co-developer of the CIA’s new partnership with the University of Barcelona— the Torribera Mediterranean Center, with its focus on the healthy, traditional Mediterranean Diet and regional food studies—and a strategic advisor to the European-based EAT Foundation, Greg works internationally to advance innovation at the intersection of health, sustainability, culture, and culinary insight. In 2005, Greg was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America, and in 2007 and 2009 he shared a second and third James Beard Award for his team’s work in developing the CIA’s Savoring the Best of World Flavors digital media series, filmed on location around the world. He served on the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States (final report 2010). In 2011, he was inducted as a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili, Europe’s oldest agricultural academy based in Florence. In 2017, Foodservice Director included Greg in its “20 People Shaping American Foodservice Today.” Before joining the CIA, he jointly spearheaded a collaboration of some of the world’s leading health experts and organizations—including the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and WHO—in authoring The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid: A Cultural Model for Healthy *** SUBJECT TO CHANGE *** 2021 Worlds of Flavor Presenter Biographies | Updated October 24, 2019 | Page 2 of 5 © 2021The Culinary Institute of America. All rights reserved. Eating. The cumulative results of this research were published in a special edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1995), creating an evidence-based foundation for much of the academic, policy, and media interest in the Mediterranean Diet that followed. (Sacramento, CA) DOMINIQUE DUFOUR is chef at Gray Jay Hospitality. Dominique was born north-east of Montréal, Quebec. Immersed in French Canadian food culture, she grew up curious. Upon entering her culinary career, she travelled extensively to cook in the UK, Spain and all across Canada. She found a burning passion for culinary history and the Canadian identity. In 2019 she opened her first restaurant, Gray Jay, where she decided to explore those themes further. Today she is still at the helm of the kitchen, spending her time foraging for new dishes and reclaiming old techniques long forgotten. (Ottawa, Canada) SAMANTHA FORE is a first-generation Sri Lankan-American chef from Lexington, Kentucky. She started her pop-up restaurant in 2016, after traditional Sri Lankan brunches in her home outgrew her dining room. Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites menus reflect Sam’s Sri Lankan upbringing in the American South. Her work has been featured in multiple national publications (including the cover of Food & Wine magazine) and she can be seen on PBS’s Somewhere South. She was named one of Plate’s 2018 Chefs to Watch and was selected as one of Southern Living’s 2020 Cooks of the Year. (Lexington, KY) NELSON GERMAN is chef-owner of Alamar. (Oakland, CA) ELENA HERNANDEZ holds a Grand Diplôme in Culinary and Pastry Arts from Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, and for 15 years worked her way through hotel and restaurant kitchens while teaching culinary arts in Panama and South America. In 2002, she founded the Academia de Artes Culinarias, the first private cooking school in Panama. Elena has consulted as corporate chef for Copa Airlines, the Panamanian national airline; helped create and starred as head judge on Quiero Ser Chef, a cooking reality show on Televisora Nacional; has appeared as guest chef on Top Chef Panama, and writes regularly about food. Her articles have been published in La Prensa, the leading national newspaper, and several local food magazines. La Prensa named her one of the five most important chefs in Panama of the last 25 years for her contributions to culinary education, while Chilean magazine Blank named her Pioneer of Culinary Education in her country. She served on the board of directors of the International Association of Culinary Professionals between 2007 and 2011. In 2016 she opened St. Francis Café, a restaurant focusing on local, fresh ingredients serving brunch every day of the week. (Panama City, Panama) CATHY NASH HOLLEY has been publisher and editor-in-chief of Flavor & The Menu since it began nearly 20 years ago. With its annual Top 10 Trends issue, Flavor & The Menu is a valuable resource for the foodservice industry, serving as a source of flavor and menu trends, strategies and innovation. In addition to overseeing the magazine, Cathy gives presentations on flavor trends at industry events, and is immediate past-president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council. She lives in Maine with her teenage twins. (Portland, ME) MELISSA M.