Jo-Anne McArthur

Photo: Lesley Marino

We are so excited that Jo-Anne McArthur will be speaking at Vegfest!

McArthur is an award-winning photographer, author, and educator based in Toronto, Canada. Through her long-term body of work, We Animals, she has been documenting our complex relationship with animals around the globe. Since 1998, her work has taken her to over fifty countries.

McArthur’s first book, We Animals, was published in 2014. Her forthcoming book, Captive, will be published in summer 2017.

McArthur was the subject of the critically acclaimed 2013 documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine, which followed her as she documented the plight of abused and exploited animals and advocated for their rights as sentient beings.

Her newest endeavour, The Unbound Project, with co-author Dr. Keri Cronin, is a photographic project that celebrates female leaders at the forefront of animal advocacy, both contemporary and historical.

McArthur’s photography and writing has been in publications such as National Geographic and National Geographic Traveller, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, the LA Times, Elle Canada, Canadian Geographic, THIS Magazine, DAYS Japan, Helsingin Sanomat, Der Spiegel, PhotoLife magazine, PDN Online, Huffington Post, Earth Island Journal, Outdoor Photography, Feature Shoot, Alternatives Journal, Canadian Living, and Canadian Dimension. In addition, We Animals images have been used by more than 100 organizations, publishers and academics to advocate for animals.

Dr. Kerry Graff

Kerry GraffeWe are so excited to have Dr Kerry Graff speaking!

Dr. Graff is a family physician in solo practice in Canandaigua, NY and assistant medical director for Rochester Lifestyle Medicine.

After learning about the tremendous health benefits of eating a whole food plant-based diet, she personally adopted this way of eating and has been teaching it to her patients using the 4Leaf Program, which encourages people to get 80% or more of calories from whole plants for personal as well as environmental health. She now serves as Chief Medical Officer of 4Leaf Global and is the co-author of The 4Leaf Guide to Vibrant Health with J. Morris Hicks.

She is a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and holds a certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies through eCornell. She remains board certified in Family Medicine and is a member of the American Academy of Family Practice.

Dr. Ted Barnett

Ted BarnettWe are thrilled to have Dr. Ted Barnett speaking, the High-Tech Doctor with Low Tech Solutions!

Dr. Barnett is medical director for Rochester Lifestyle Medicine.  He is Board Certified in Diagnostic Imaging as well as Vascular and Interventional Radiology and has practiced in the Rochester area since 1986.

Dr. Barnett teaches a 6-week plant-based nutrition course which is accredited for 12 professional CME.  Over 520 Rochesterians have taken the course, which has been given 11 times.

He, his wife and three children have thrived on an exclusively plant-based diet for 25 years.

Dr. Bruce Monger

Bruce MongerWe’re so happy to have Dr. Bruce Monger joining us to talk about animal agriculture and our oceans!

Dr. Monger received his PhD in Oceanography from the University of Hawaii, Manoa in 1993. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland for two years before coming to Cornell in 1997 as a Senior Researcher, and more recently a Senior Lecturer, in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Bruce’s research centers on the use of satellite observations to study how natural variability in ocean dynamics impacts marine ecosystems at ocean basin and global scales. He teaches a highly popular course at Cornell University: “Introductory Oceanography” with an attendance that has grown to over 1,000 students. A major theme the course centers of environmental threats to the ocean and the importance of citizen activism to pressure leaders to act now to make a more sustainable world that is fair to future generations. His course was featured as part of a New York Times article on interesting courses in the United States.