You’ve probably heard the phrase “you are what you eat” and know about the relationships between food and physical health, but what about the links between food, nutrition, eating behaviors and mental health? Join us to learn about food and mental wellbeing with neuropsychologist Dr. Nicole Salman from Snapdragon Wellness!

Speaker: Dr. Nicole Salman – Snapdragon Wellness, www.snapdragonwellness.com
Dr. Nicole Salman is a neuropsychologist specializing in food and nutrition and how it impacts our bodies and brains. Her goal is to help individuals develop a happy and healthy lifestyle that supports overall wellness by working with individuals to understand their relationship with food. Whether Dr. Salman is identifying challenging eating patterns or developing a nutrition plan to assist individuals, she helps clients begin to build healthy eating practices. She provides opportunities for hands-on cooking lessons, sleep hygiene education, neurocognitive evaluations to understand one’s strengths and difficulties, and so much more.

Channel your inner pollinator and “stop and smell the roses” with researcher Michael Roswell. Learn about the important role of pollinators in agriculture and local food systems while identifying insects and exploring pollination biology during this hands-on lecture.

Speaker: Michael Roswell, https://michaelroswell.com/
Michael Roswell grew up outside of Baltimore, Maryland, then studied biology and linguistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and later received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Between college and graduate school, he worked as a science educator in the Northeast US and in Southern California. In his postdoc at the University of Maryland, he conducted preliminary work on the pollination biology of soybeans, worked with 4H to develop teaching materials, and developed a prioritization tool for regional species conservation. He is currently working on Rabies transmission as well as ongoing work on biodiversity measurement. He is interested in the ecology and conservation of plant-pollinator interactions, robust methods for biodiversity estimation, and developing quantitative tools in ecology. Michael loves sharing what he’s learning about bees, other pollinators, pollination ecology, and infectious diseases, and regularly does outreach programming with schools, beekeeping organizations, master gardeners, and other groups.

When you think about where your food comes from, a farm or grocery store might be one of the first things you think of, but food is all around us – if we know where to look! Learn about foraging, food forests, and more with teacher and forest gardener Bodhi Vasilopoulos.

Speaker: Bodhi Vasilopoulos

How has Montgomery County’s history shaped the food system we see today? Listen to historian, author, and explorer of the American past – Tony Cohen – talk about historical foodways, with a focus on the Museum Garden at Button Farm Living History Center and the heirloom varieties being grown there.

Speaker: Tony Cohen, Button Farm Living History Center https://buttonfarm.org/
Anthony Cohen is a historian, author, and explorer of the American past. Tony launched his career in 1996, walking two months from Maryland to Canada, along the Underground Railroad. Tony is the Founder and President of The Menare Foundation (https://www.menare.org/), a national non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Underground Railroad. Tony is also a founding member of the Montgomery County Lynching Memorial Project and has served as a consultant to the National Parks Conservation Association, Maryland Public Television, NASA, and trained Oprah Winfrey for her role in the 1998 motion picture Beloved. Tony operates the Button Farm Living History Center, a 40-acre farm depicting 1850s plantation life in Maryland. To bring this history to life Button Farm recreates sensory experiences of the past, integrating the tastes, touch, smell, sights and sounds of the 1850s into the daily operations of the farm.

Envision the future of agriculture in Montgomery County with a panel of young farmers who are reimagining the food system.

Speakers: Falani Spivey