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 2021, she was awarded the inaugural Carver Carson Award for American
innovation in environmental protection and agriculture from the Henry Ford Museum. Alice is the
author of sixteen books including her latest, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto.
Most recently, UC Davis has asked Alice Waters to create an Institute for Regenerative Agriculture
and Edible Education at the Aggie Square campus in downtown Sacramento. The Institute will
bring together food and agriculture leaders and innovators from around the world in order to
address climate change and public health through the procurement of regenerative food in schools.
