Biographies Andrea Bairati is the director of the Piedmont Regional Authority Department of Universities, Research, Innovation and International Policies, Industry and Energy. After graduating in Biotechnologies and carrying out subsequent studies in complex system analysis and evaluations, he conducted projects in the fields of training systems engineering and the monitoring of the demand for knowhow and innovation in the business and industrial system. He has managed service and consulting companies while working for local institutions, ministries, business associations, unions and the EU. A contributor to the Il Sole 24 Ore financial newspaper, he has also worked as managing director of CSEA, a vocational training consortium, on behalf of the City of Turin, and as an evaluator of EU community projects. He has worked for Torino Milano 2010, a joint project of the Chambers of Commerce of Turin and Milan, and was scientific director of the Salone dei Mestieri trade and craft show in 2005. Luigi Bistagnino, an architect and designer, lives and works in Turin, specializing in the eco-compatibility of industrial products and components. A professor of Industrial Design at the Politecnico di Torino, he has published many essays and articles in major local and international reviews. Many of his designs are currently in production, and he has won national and international design awards, including the Compasso d’Oro of the Italian Association of Industrial Design (ADI). He is a coordinator and member of several research projects. His publications include: Design Sistemico, Slow Food Editore, 2009 (in preparation); Il guscio esterno visto dall'interno, CEA, 2008; DesignPiedmont, Agit, 2007; Design con un futuro, Time&Mind, 2003; Ecodesign in the EU, The Kuopio Academy, 2000. Gianluca Bocchi studied philosophy at the University of Milan, where he graduated in the philosophy of science in 1978. Since 1988 he has worked as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Geneva. He was co-founder and is still an active member of GERG (General Evolution Research Group, New York-Frankfurt) and CERCO (Research Centre on Complexity, Bergamo). He also works as a publicist and consultant for public bodies, universities and the private sector. It was he who introduced the study of complexity to Italy with his book La sfida alla complessità (co-author Mauro Ceruti, 1985). Together with Marco Ceruti and Edgar Morin, he is also author of L’Europa nell’era planetaria (1991). He is currently studying the complex nexus of the problems of interculturality, the possible emergence of a planetary civilization, and the main lines of development of human history. Rachel Black, a Canadian anthropologist specializing in Food Anthropology, has been living, traveling and working in Europe since 2000. She gained her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Turin and works for the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo and the University of British Columbia. She is a contributing editor to Anthropology News, published by the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition of the American Anthropological Association, and has published numerous articles and papers. She is a member of anthropological associations in Europe and North America, where she is now extending her field of studies. Valter Cantino is professor of business economics at the University of Turin. He is the dean of the University of Gastronomic Science of Pollenzo (Cuneo), Italy and director of the School of Business Administration at the University of Turin. In 2003 he devised the European project for a business economics degree course in English at the Faculty of Economic (the first to be taught in English at

the University of Turin), which he still directs. A member of the Italian National Commission of Business Consultant and Professional Accountants and Italian delegate on the FEE (Foundation for Environmental Education) Auditing Commission on Reporting on Internal Control, he won the “Scanno” award for ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in 2001. In 1990 he obtained the ITP (International Teachers Program) certificate at IAE (Graduate School of Management) in Aix-en-Provence. Raffaele De Lutio was born in Turin and graduated in Law at the Federico II University in Naples. In 1974-1975, he was Campania regional secretary of the Young Farmers’ National Association, and in 1978 he worked at FIAT Auto on the Young Managers Program. In 1978 he began his diplomatic career as functionary at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For more than ten years, he followed Community issues from the Ministry and as a member of the Italian delegation at the European Union. More specifically, from 1993 to 1997, he worked as press and Information officer. In 2004, as diplomatic Councillor of the then minister of Agriculture, Gianni Alemanno, collaborating in the organization of the first Terra Madre event in Turin. Today he is the Italian Ambassador to Ethiopia. Adriano Favole is a researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Turin, where he teaches History of Anthropology and Ethnology in Oceania. He has carried out research activities in various areas of French-speaking islands of Oceania (New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna). He has taught at the universities of Bologna, Milan, Genoa and New Caledonia. As part of a Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity project, he has carried out research on the Kanak food heritage in New Caledonia. Eric Holt-Gimenez is an agro-ecologist and political economist. He is currently the executive director of Food First, an institute involved with food and development policies. He has worked for over 30 years with farmers’ movements in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the United States. He is author of two books, Campesino a Campesino: Voices from Latin America's Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice (with Raj Patel). Tim Lang has been Professor of Food Policy at City University in London since 2002. After a PhD in psychology at Leeds University, he was a hill farmer in the 1970s. A founder member and chair of Sustain, an NGO alliance in 1985, he was a regular advisor/consultant to the World Health Organisation, 1996-2007. In 2006, he was appointed Natural Resources and Land Use Commissioner on the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission where he led the 2008 Green, Healthy and Fair report on the UK government’s relations with supermarkets. He was appointed a member of the Council of Food Policy Advisors to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs in December 2008 and has been a special advisor to House of Commons inquiries on food standards, globalisation and obesity. He is a Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. His latest book is: Food Policy: Integrating Health, Environment & Society. Luca Mercalli, a researcher on the history of the climate of glaciers, is the president of the Italian Meteorological Society and director of the meteorological journal Nimbus. He writes for the Italian daily La Repubblica, and often appears on the RAI3 TV program Che tempo che fa and the RAI2 TV program TG Montagne. His latest books are Il clima di Torino and Filosofia delle nuvole. He fights land exploitation, has cultivated his own vegetable garden for over 30 years, and tries to make the world a better place to live in.

Carlo Modonesi, a biologist, graduated in Hygiene and Environmental Ecology at the University of Milan. He has taught Zoology at the University of Parma, and is currently a lecturer in Naturalistic Communication on the specialist program in Nature Conservation at the University of Parma. Since 2005, he has collaborated with the Department of Human Sciences at the University of Bergamo on the history and culture of natural sciences. He teaches Zoology and Animal Biology at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo. His main interests are the relationship between humans and animals, nature education and biodiversity conservation. Loretta Napoleoni is an expert on financing of terrorism and advises several governments on counter-terrorism. Born and raised in Rome, in the mid-1970s she became an active member of the feminist movement and a political activist. As an economist she has worked for several banks and international organizations in Europe and the US. In the early 1980s she worked at the National Bank of Hungary on the convertibility of the florin, creating the blueprint for the convertibility of the rouble a decade later. She is also a journalist and has worked as a foreign correspondent for several Italian financial papers. Her work appears regularly in many journals and publications, including several European newspapers. She lectures regularly on the financing of terrorism. She has written novels and guide books in Italian, and translated and edited books on terrorism. Her most recent novel, Dossier Baghdad, is a financial thriller set during the Gulf War. She was among the few people to interview the Red Brigades in Italy after three decades of silence. Clara Nicholls is a Colombian researcher at the Berkeley University Center for Latin American Studies. She has taught on undergraduate and graduate courses at universities in California, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Chile and Colombia. Since 2002, she has taught ‘Prospects of sustainable rural development in Latin America’ at the University of California, in Berkeley course and the Stanford University Center for Latin American Studies, and since 2005 at Santa Clara University. She is deeply committed to participatory research, in which farmers play a key role not only in shaping the agenda, but also in conducting and evaluating studies and implementing the results. She is co-author of three books and more than 30 scientific articles on agroecology and rural development published in various international journals. Raj Patel is a British-born academic, journalist, activist and writer. He is best known for his 2008 book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies of the University of California in Berkeley, a fellow at Food First, and an honorary research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Ezio Pelizzetti graduated in Chemistry in 1967 and in Political Sciences in 1984, on both occasions at the University of Turin. A full professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Parma from 1986 to 1990 and at the University of Turin since 1990, he has also been a visiting professor in Switzerland, USA, Russia and Argentina. In 1997 he received the “Bressa” gold medal from the Science Academy of Turin. He is a member of many scientific and organizational committees, and has taken part in many national and international conferences, seminars and schools. He has published more than 450 essays in international scientific journals and is the author of Surfactants in Analytical Chemistry in the ‘Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry’ series (Elsevier, 1996). He is on the list of Highly Cited Researchersand is the most cited Italian researcher on Environmental Science (EERO report). He is currently Dean of the University of Turin. Carlo Petrini began to write about food and wine in 1977 and some years later founded Arcigola, an association whose aim was to promote the culture of conviviality and good food and wine, and which eventually developed into the Slow Food movement. In 1989 Petrini was elected president

of Slow Food International, an office he still holds today. Blessed with a knack of anticipating events in the fields of food, agriculture and gastronomy, Petrini has gradually developed a new concept of gastronomy, which considers food as the result of cultural, historical, economical and environmental processes. Among his many achievements is the creation of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo and Colorno, the first academic institution to offer an interdisciplinary approach to food studies. Andrea Pieroni is an ethnobotanist, He obtained his degree in Pharmaceutical Botany at the University of Pisa and his doctorate at the University of Bonn. A researcher at the University of London since 2000, and senior lecturer at the University of Bradford in Britain, he returned to Italy after 16 years in January 2009 as associate professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. He is president elect of the International Society of Ethnobiology, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine and a member of the editorial boards of many international ethnoscientific publications. A member of the Italian Association for Ethno-anthropological Sciences (AISEA), he performs ethnobotanical research on the perceptions and uses of plants for nutritional and medicinal purposes in southern Italy, the Balkans and among migrant communities. Claudia Ranaboldo studied pedagogy at the University of Turin and has been working for more than 25 years in Latin America. She is based in Bolivia, where, among other public appointments, she has been deputy minister of Productive Promotion. She has performed international consultancies on the role of institutions, decentralization and local participation. She has written many publications on topics such as agroecology and the local approach. She is currently head researcher at the Latin American Center for Rural Development (RIMISP), where she coordinates the Project of Local Development with Cultural Identity. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, eco-feminist, philosopher, activist, and author of many books. In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. This institute is dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, working in partnership with local communities and social movements. She has also promoted the development of the movement Navdanya, which focuses on biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. Nancy Turner is an emeritus professor at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada. She is an ethnobotanist with over 40 years’ experience of working with and learning from indigenous elders and plant specialists in western North America. She has written many books and papers in her field, and has received a number of awards, including a Slow Food Award for Biodiversity Conservation in 2000. Richard Wilk is professor of anthropology and gender studies at Indiana University, where he directs the Food Studies Program. With a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, he has taught at many universities both in the United States and in Europe. He has carried out research activities in Belize, the USA and West Africa; he has also worked as an applied anthropologist with UNICEF, USAID, USDA, Cultural Survival and various other development organizations. His initial research on the cultural ecology of farming and family organization was followed by work on consumer culture and sustainable consumption, energy consumption, globalization, television, beauty pageants and food. Much of his recent work has turned towards the history of food, the linkages between tourism and sustainable development, and the origin of modern masculinity. His most recent publication is Fast Food/Slow Food (Altamira Press).