Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. She has been a champion of local organic agriculture for over four decades. In 1995, with a background in Montessori education, she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. Applying the Montessori philosophy of learning-by-doing, the program uses an organic garden and on-site kitchen classroom to teach all academic subjects. The Edible Schoolyard Project model has been replicated in over 6,000 schools around the world.

In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act. In 2022, she was awarded the inaugural Carver Carson Award for American innovation  in environmental protection and agriculture from the Henry Ford Museum. In 2023, she received the No Kid Hungry Humanitarian Award from Share Our Strength in Los Angeles, and in 2024 she was honored with the Dr. Maria Montessori Ambassador Award. Alice is the author of sixteen books including her latest, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto.

PARTICIPATING EVENTS:

Book Signing and Conversation: A Conversation with Alice Waters