Native New Yorker Fran Costigan, the “Queen of Vegan Desserts,” is an internationally recognized culinary instructor, author, consultant, recipe developer and the pioneering vegan pastry chef who marries healthy eating with sumptuous tastes. The “Fran Factor” is her unique ability to transform traditional desserts into modern, healthful, and luscious vegan desserts that satisfy vegans and omnivores alike. In Fran’s recipes, ‘nothing is missing except the dairy, eggs, white sugar and excess fat.’ She is the authority on all things related to vegan baking and desserts.

A graduate of the New York Restaurant School, the Natural Gourmet Institute, and Nick Malgerie’s Professional Pastry Intensive, today Fran teaches her unique courses at the Institute of Culinary Education, the Natural Gourmet Institute (including her always sold-out Vegan Baking Boot Camp Intensive®), and at other venues throughout the US and Canada. Fran’s most recent book, More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts Naturally (Book Publishing Company, 2006), is designed as a complete course in vegan baking. Fran’s recipes feature organic whole grains, fair trade natural sweeteners and chocolates, and clean seasonal ingredients.

Fran and her decadent modern vegan dessert recipes have been featured on Discovery Health’s Get Fresh with Sara Snow, Better TV, and ABC’s Nightline. Her work has been profiled in numerous print and online publications such as The New Yorker, VegNews, Veg Family, Vegetarian Journal, Vegetarian Voice, Café Sweets Japan, and Organic Spa Magazine. Fran also promotes her message through her professional affiliations, which include the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance (NYWCA), International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR), and the New York Coalition for Healthy School Foods.

For more information, please visit www.francostigan.com.

Linda Szarkowski is a graduate of the internationally renowned Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, where she received her certification as a Raw Culinary Arts Chef and Instructor. Linda is passionate about sharing the living foods lifestyle with others and now teaches raw culinary arts classes in Chicago.
Linda has been a raw food chef at the award-winning Chicago Diner and also at Beets Living Foods Cafe in Austin, Texas. She has also been a chef for the Chicago Raw Foods Community weekend retreats and Thanksgiving dinners.

A founding member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Michael Greger, MD, is a physician, author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety, and public health issues. He has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the International Bird Flu Summit, the National Institutes of Health, testified before Congress, and was invited as an expert witness in the defense of Oprah Winfrey in the infamous "meat defamation" trial. He is a graduate of Cornell University School of Agriculture and Tufts University School of Medicine. Currently Dr. Greger serves as the Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States.

Nathan Runkle is the Founder and Executive Director of Mercy For Animals. Raised on a farm in rural Ohio, Nathan has long had a deep connection with farmed animals and agriculture. After a local farmed animal abuse case, involving a piglet slammed head first into a concrete floor during an agriculture project at a nearby high school, Nathan founded Mercy For Animals to give "food" animals a much needed advocate in his local community.

Since founding Mercy For Animals a decade ago, Nathan has overseen the organization's growth into a leading national force for the respectful and compassionate treatment of farmed animals. A grassroots organizer and coordinator for many years, Nathan has spearheaded hundreds of demonstrations and outreach events across the country - ranging from protests outside pork and egg producer conventions to parade marches, educational exhibits, and more.

Through his work with MFA, Nathan has been an outspoken advocate for animal rights, appearing in hundreds of newspaper, television, and radio interviews, including National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

During the formative years of MFA, Nathan conducted numerous investigations and rescue operations at factory farms, livestock auctions, and rodeo events. Nathan led teams of MFA investigators into Ohio's four largest egg factory farms, exposing egregious animal cruelty and neglect, as well as directly rescuing dozens of animals in dire need of veterinary care. Nathan spearheaded the organization's efforts to rescue, rehabilitate, and find homes for over 500 hens rescued from a battery-cage facility dilapidated by a tornado.

VegNews magazine has recognized both Mercy For Animals and Nathan for making substantial contributions to the vegetarian movement, naming MFA "Non-Profit of the Year" and Nathan one of the "25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians" and one of the country's "Top 20 Activists Under 30 Years Old."

Having earned a master’s degree in English Literature, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau uses her writing and communication skills to be a voice for animals and to inspire people to live according to their own values of compassion and healthfulness. A sought-after and inspiring public speaker on the spiritual, social, and practical aspects of a vegan lifestyle, Colleen is the author of three cookbooks (The Joy of Vegan Baking and The Vegan Table; and Color Me Vegan, which is due out in December 2010), the host of the popular and award-winning podcast Vegetarian Food for Thought, a columnist for VegNews Magazine, a contributor to National Public Radio, and has appeared on the Food Network. She is very grateful to have the opportunity to witness transformations taking place in people as they gain the tools and resources they need to reflect their values in their daily choices.

Milton R. Mills, M.D., serves as Associate Director of Preventive Medicine for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a North American group of doctors and laypersons dedicated to promoting improved health care, better and more appropriate nutrition, and higher standards in medical research.

Dr. Mills practices outpatient clinic-based medicine in Northern Virginia and works as a Critical Care physician with Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia and United Medical Center in Washington DC. His varied experience specializing in Internal Medicine and HIV disease, and in the relationship between nutrition and chronic diseases has made him extensively knowledgeable about the unique healthcare needs of minorities, the challenges of practicing medicine in inner cities, and the special medical and nutritional requirements of HIV+ and AIDS patients.

As an African-American physician focusing on preventive medicine, Dr. Mills has delved into some of the environmental and societal influences affecting the health of African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities.  Dr. Mills has lectured and given research seminars across the United States and in Mexico and Canada on such topics as the negative impacts of meat and dairy consumption on human health; nutrition and HIV/AIDS; nutrition and cancer; and the dietary needs of various ethnic groups.

Dr. Mills, who graduated in 1991 from Stanford University School of Medicine, began working with AIDS patients while still in school. He also served as student body president of the medical school, founded the Minority Students' Alliance, and worked as Editor-in-chief and Managing editor of the Stanford Medical School newspaper.  He did his internship at the University of California-San Francisco, and completed his residency training at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Mills' papers on race and diet have appeared in the Journal of the National Medical Association.

Carol J. Adams is the author of the pioneering The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory which has just been released in a twentieth anniversary edition. The New York Times has called it a “bible of the vegan community.” She has helped to formulate vegan and vegetarian theory through The Sexual Politics of Meat and her other books including The Pornography of Meat, Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian Survival Guide; Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat! and The Inner Art of Vegetarianism. Carol has published close to 100 articles in journals, books, and magazines on the issues of vegetarianism and veganism, animal advocacy, domestic violence and sexual abuse. She is particularly interested in the interconnections among forms of violence against human and nonhuman animals. Carol has worked to bring back into print Howard Williams's nineteenth-century classic text on vegetarianism, The Ethics of Diet. Recently she discovered a 1745 vegetarian pamphlet that has gone unnoticed for 260 years. Carol's work is widely cited, anthologized and used as a text in college courses in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Choice says of her work, "Adams's thinking is brilliant and original." Her work is featured in the award-winning documentary, A Cow at My Table. A rock group, Consolidated, devoted one track of their CD Friendly Fascism to The Sexual Politics of Meat. She has shown The Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show on more than 120 campuses.