Episode #67: Food as Transformation with Evan Kleiman (Re-release)

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This conversation with Evan Kleiman is a breath of fresh air, covering the practices and perspectives that sustain Evan’s regenerative, equitable, and of course, delicious approach to preparing a meal. The perspectives offered honor the transformative role that food can play in a complex social landscape, honoring each and every part of the food system. 

More about Evan Kleiman:

Evan Kleiman

Evan Kleiman is a Culinary Multitasker ™. Former longtime chef-restaurateur-cookbook author,  Evan has been the host of KCRW’s Good Food for over 25 years.

 After living in and exploring Italy and its food culture at age 17, Evan graduated from UCLA with  a degree in Italian Literature and Film. She founded the beloved Angeli Caffe in 1984, has published six cookbooks, and has hosted over 6000+ interviews with KCRW’s Good Food, received the Best Audio Series award from the IACP in 2012. Evan was inducted into the James Beard Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 2017. 

A member of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and founder of LA’s Slow Food Chapter, Evan incorporates the social, human, political, and environmental aspects into her discussions of food. She looks forward to many more years of conversation with people who inhabit every part of the food system. Keep an eye out for her writing on Substack, “Evan’s Food Thoughts”.

Episode #65: Why is Nature’s Beauty a Tool for Human Healing? With Louie Schwartzberg

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Turns out, we need more wonder in our lives, beauty is a survival tool, and mushrooms are the greatest carbon-sequester solution for climate change. Learn about this and more through the words and wisdom of our guest today, Louie Schwartzberg. Louie Schwartzberg is an environmental activist, UCLA graduate, and award-winning artist, director, cinematographer. In this episode, Louie says that the messaging of the environmental movement has failed. Why? Because instead of just laying facts on the table, you have to tell a really good story to move people. And Louie tells the story of nature by capturing its abundant beauty in his breathtaking photography and videography seen on Netflix and Disney.

More about Louie Schwartzberg:

Louie Schwartzberg:

From Louie’s Moving Art website: Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer who has spent his notable career providing breathtaking imagery using his time-lapse, high-speed and macro cinematography techniques. Schwartzberg is a visual artist who breaks barriers, connects with audiences, and tells stories that celebrate life and reveal the mysteries and wisdom of nature, people, and places.

Louie’s theatrical releases include the 3D IMAX film Mysteries of the Unseen World with National Geographic, narrated by Forest Whitaker; the theatrical feature, Wings of Life for Disneynature, narrated by Meryl Streep, and America’s Heart and Soul for Walt Disney Studios.

Louie’s three TED talks have gone viral with over 60 million combined views.Louie is currently developing Visual Healing, an immersive health & wellness program maximizing his award-winning body of work to reduce stress and anxiety. Visual Healing has been piloted at the new billion dollar Jacobs Medical Center at UCSD as well as the Dallas Center for Brain Health. It forms part of the Wellness programs at Post Ranch Big Sur, Cavallo Point Inn SF, Kamalaya Resort Koh Samui and many others. 

The Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center is partnering with Louie’s Moving Art for a research project on UCLA campus. If you would like to install Moving Art in your campus department, please email kruller@conet.ucla.edu

Episode #64: Part 2 of Why Can Preventive Health Services Be Covered by Health Insurance?

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Why can preventive health services be covered by health insurance? Why should we be prioritizing research and screenings that close the evidence gaps in health research? And who can help shift these priorities? That’s the US Preventive Services Task Force. Today, our guest, past appointed chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and UCLA professor and physician, guides us through getting onboarded, choosing recommendations, bridging evidence to make preventive services more accessible for everyone. 

More about Carol Mangione:

Carol M. Mangione, M.D., M.S.P.H., is the chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research; holds the Barbara A. Levey, M.D., and Gerald S. Levey, M.D., endowed chair in medicine; and is a distinguished professor of medicine and public health at UCLA and the executive vice chair for Health Equity and Health Services Research in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Mangione’s areas of research expertise include guideline development with a focus on preventive services, diabetes, diabetes prevention, health disparities, aging, and the impact of health insurance benefit design on health outcomes. Dr. Mangione has authored more than 370 peer-reviewed articles and seven book chapters.

Dr. Mangione is the recipient of the 2018 Society of General Internal Medicine John M. Eisenberg National Award for Career Achievement in Research and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Mangione was appointed as chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in March 2022 and currently serves as immediate past chair. 

Dr. Mangione received her B.S. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She earned her M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed her residency at University of California Affiliated Hospitals. Dr. Mangione earned her M.S.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health and has completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School.

Episode #62 (Re-Release): Finding the Path Back to Meaning and Joy

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What are the little things we can do to create ritual, reflection, and reduce stress as we navigate new transitions? As we enter into this upcoming school year and a new season, this re-released episode with Dr. Brenda Bursch will walk us through resilience tools — from setting boundaries to putting plants in your office — to navigate change with a bit more calm. Dr. Bursch, an expert in mental health and resilience, is a professor and clinical psychologist in the UCLA Departments Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Pediatrics. This re-released episode was originally our 36th episode in September 2021. 

More about Dr. Brenda Bursch:

Dr. Brenda Bursch

Dr. Bursch is a professor and clinical psychologist in the UCLA Departments Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Pediatrics, where she has been on faculty since 1994. Her area of clinical specialization is working with medically ill individuals and their family members. Since 2015, she has been developing evidence-based interventions for UCLA health professionals that are designed to protect them from the impact of the high stress and trauma that they encounter at work. Since 2018, she has further adapted these evidence-based interventions for professionals outside the healthcare field who have high stress jobs requiring a high level of performance.

Episode #61: The Fresh Food Farmacy and Preventive Care with Dr. Andrea Feinberg

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Join us today for a deep dive into how social determinants of health, the non-medical influences that contribute to someone’s health outcomes, can be addressed with a preventive, population-based approach, like Geisinger’s Fresh Food Farmacy. Dr. Andrea Feinberg guides us through this topic, outlining her work as a critical care ICU doctor, a population health leader, and as the lead doctor addressing chronic diabetes and food insecurity in Pennsylvania’s communities through free meal programs and food education. The subsequent diabetes control results are striking, and serve as an example for further community-based approaches to healthcare.

More about Andrea Feinberg:

Andrea Feinberg

Andrea Feinberg is a clinician passionate about improving the health of communities through lifestyle medicine, primary care, and social determinants of health. She practiced Internal Medicine, Pulmonary & Critical Care, and later concierge medicine. While in Pennsylvania, she founded the innovative Fresh Food Farmacy which served “food as medicine” which was replicated by many nationwide. She is currently focused on philanthropy aimed at helping underserved populations.

Episode #60: Eco-Conscious Teaching, Living, and Community Building with Tamar Christensen

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Join us today for a lesson in environmental storytelling with Tamar Christensen. Everything about Tamar’s story is fascinating– she is a writing instructor at UCLA, a Veteran, a composter, a chicken mom, and a zero-waste lifestyle icon. We hear about how she sold her car after a transformative trip to Europe, how she gave food nonprofit Nourish LA a home at UCLA, and how she structures her creative writing classes around navigating eco-anxiety and knowing one’s place in the climate crisis.

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Tamar Christensen

As a first-generation college graduate and a US Navy veteran, Tamar is passionate about empowering her students to find their voice and contribute to the academic conversation.  Since earning her Master’s degree in History from CSU Long Beach and joining the Writing Programs faculty in 2010, she has taught the full range of lower and upper division courses offered by the department.  Drawing from the analytical writing textbook she co-authored, Own Your Perspective, Tamar leads thought-provoking classroom discussions and a rigorous revision process to arm students with the ability and desire to both articulate and act on their complicated views. No matter the writing course, Tamar underscores climate crisis issues, including at least one major assignment focused on the topic.  Recently, Tamar developed the Professional Writing Minor course, “Topics in Science Writing: Environmental Awareness to Climate Action,” which helps students translate complicated scientific works (e.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5ºC, 2018) into effective op-eds, social media interactions and blogs, personal narratives, and TED Talks with the goal to instigate positive climate action that connects the individual to the collective.  Tamar’s pedagogy is a direct reflection of her personal commitment both in and outside the classroom. She has been an invited speaker for student clubs across campus to help Bruins reimagine their lifestyles, focusing on how she transitioned to a zero waste lifestyle, reduced her consumption habits, changed her diet, and learned to get around LA without a car. In both her lifestyle and pedagogy, her focus on climate action helps students take individual steps that blossom into larger community-driven initiatives and political engagement.  

Tamar is currently working on an article to help other instructors develop climate-related writing assignments that encourage students to consider and change their personal habits while advocating for broader change.  She is also collaborating on a creative non-fiction book about how to reclaim the winter holiday season from capitalism and celebrate in a manner that is simultaneously good for the individual and our biosphere. A few of Tamar’s efforts to build a bridge between classroom pedagogy and individual practices beyond the classroom have been highlighted in the Daily Bruin and by the UCLA Transportation’s, “Be a Green Commuter” program.

Episode #59: Wendy Slusser – Behind the Mic

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In this special “Behind the Mic” episode, podcast producer Kayleigh Ruller interviews Dr. Wendy Slusser to learn more about her career, her inspirations, her mentors, and how the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center came to be. Dr. Wendy Slusser has been leading the Semel HCI center for nearly a decade to advance health research, host summits, gather leaders, and embed health equity across campus. 

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Dr. Wendelin Slusser is Associate Vice Provost for the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center at UCLA, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and Co-Founder and Academic Director of the UCLA Fit for Healthy Weight Program. She graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University, received her Medical Degree and Master’s in Science in Nutrition from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She completed her internship and residency in Pediatrics at Babies Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She joined the UCLA faculty in 1996 and since then has been a leader in community, school, clinic, and family-based programs focused on enhancing the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of infants, children, young adults and their caregivers. Dr. Slusser practiced and taught General Pediatrics and health promotion at the Venice Family Clinic for 19 years.

Episode #58: Student Advocacy as the Conscience

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Today, Wendy chats with Matt St.Clair to learn about his advocacy work, starting with the ground-breaking UC Go Solar Campaign in 2003 to his current position as the UC’s Chief Sustainability officer. We learn about cross-department collaboration, effective communication for change, and staying grounded in mission. Enjoy!

More about Matt St.Clair :

Matthew St.Clair is the first Chief Sustainability Officer for the University of California’s Office of the President and has been leading sustainability efforts across the 10-campus UC system since 2004. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Strategic Energy Innovations, an environmental nonprofit building leaders to drive sustainability solutions. As an accomplished LEED Fellow and a Certified Energy Manager,  He has advised the U.S. House of Representatives on the formation of an Office of Sustainability for the U.S. Capitol.

Episode #57: Where Food Meets Performance with Elizabeth Schiffler

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You don’t want to miss today’s episode–mainly because Wendy and Elizabeth reveal their reigning favorite salt! How’d we get there? Because Elizabeth shares how she guides her students through a mindful salt tasting–an exercise that embodies her research at the intersection of food and performance. A PhD candidate at UCLA in Theater and Performance Studies with a graduate certificate in Food Studies, Elizabeth discusses how she approaches food experiences and food justice through an artistic research lens.

More about Elizabeth Schiffler

Elizabeth Schiffler Headshot

Elizabeth Schiffler is a PhD candidate at UCLA in Theater and Performance Studies, with a graduate certificate in Food Studies. She is a part-time faculty member in Food Studies at The New School. Her work focuses on contemporary performance that uses food in and as performance, entangled with human, nonhuman, and ecological scales. She is the 2022 recipient of the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Fellowship at UCLA, and a Global Food Initiative Fellow with University of California Office of the President. She has contributed to Theatre Journal, Food, Culture & Society, and the Graduate Journal for Food Studies.

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Episode #49: Seed Saving for a Better Future with James Bassett

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There is no better person to tell us how to acquire and enjoy traditional Japanese shiso leaves or the modern honeynut squash than Dr. James Bassett–a Master Gardener, beloved UCLA lecturer, and sustainability non-profit founder. An advocate for urban agriculture, James shares with us resources and tools regarding the practice of seed-saving. We learn how seed saving is a path to improving crop diversity, preserving food culture, and promoting soil and human health for the future.

More about James Bassett

James Bassett serves on the faculty of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He holds a B.A. in psychology from UCLA and a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology and international business from the Ohio State University.  He has served on the board of directors of a natural foods company, was co-founder of a nonprofit group that taught sustainable agricultural methods in Guatemala, and played a leadership role in developing a community garden in South Central Los Angeles.  He currently serves as a certified Master Gardener in the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division and as a sustaining member of the Urban Agriculture Working Group of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council.  He is trained in permaculture design and holds culinary certificates from the California School of Culinary Arts and the Cordon Bleu in Paris.