Hoedown Weekend

Gene Baur has been hailed as “the conscience of the food movement” by Time magazine. Since the mid-1980s, he has traveled extensively, campaigning to raise awareness about the abuses of industrialized factory farming and our system of cheap food production.

A pioneer in the field of undercover investigations and farm animal rescue, Gene has visited hundreds of farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, documenting the deplorable conditions. His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired nationally and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farm animals, and his rescue work inspired an international farm sanctuary movement.

Since 1987, Ellen has led and consulted for nonprofit organizations globally in the development, poverty, energy access, climate change, and wildlife conservation sectors.

Prior to joining Farm Sanctuary, Ellen was the inaugural President & CEO for Ngaren, a project spearheaded by Richard E. Leakey to develop a full-scale science museum in Kenya’s Rift Valley, to teach the science of human evolution and life through the lens of climate change and adaptation. As an independent consultant to non-profits focused on conservation and sustainability, Ellen helped clients including Space for Giants, Maa Trust, Mara Elephant Project, IEE Smart Village, One Mara Partnership, Little Sun and more, enhance their philanthropic impact. Before launching her consulting practice, Ellen was the Executive Director of Tusk USA. In this role, she oversaw conservation projects in 20 African countries. In addition to protecting elephants and other megafauna at risk of extinction due to poaching, Tusk works to mitigate human-wildlife conflict, and empower local communities to protect biodiversity.

From 1999 to 2014, Ellen served as Vice President at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian aid organization that works with refugees worldwide. This work led to meaningful impacts in over 45 countries and took her to warzones and conflict areas—from Afghanistan to East Timor to Sudan.

Ellen started her career at the National Urban League before spending ten years at Covenant House, overseeing a shelter for more than 10,000 homeless youth in New York City. At Covenant House she designed innovative education and vocational programs for youth, and pioneered a profit-making, media-acclaimed Greenwich Village gourmet restaurant, Ezekiel’s, which trained youth in culinary arts and placed graduates in full-time paid restaurant and culinary positions.

Ellen is a Strategic Advisor for the Terra Conservation Initiative and serves as a Board Member of Friends of Wildlife Justice Commission, and the US Advisory Board of Born Free.

Ellen holds a BA in English from Georgetown University, a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Wagner School of Public Service, NYU, and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Ellen also completed coursework for a PhD in Anthropology at CUNY, focusing on post-genocide Rwanda, and holds an Executive Non-Profit Management certificate from Columbia University.

Ellen lives in New York City with her daughter Kate, partner Mat, and three dogs, Goose, Homer, and Mr. Peabody.

Jo-Anne is an award-winning photojournalist, sought-after speaker, photo editor, animal rights activist, and the founder of We Animals Media. She has visited over sixty countries to document our complex and fraught relationship with animals. She is the author of three books: We Animals (2014), Captive (2017), and HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), and is the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine. Jo-Anne’s photographs have been published and exhibited worldwide, and have received accolades from Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature Photographer of the Year, Big Picture, Picture of the Year International, the Global Peace Award, and others. Since 2020, Jo-Anne has juried international photo competitions such as World Press Photo and Big Picture. She hails from Toronto, Canada.

Nate Salpeter and his wife, Anna Sweet, founded Sweet Farm in 2016 in California. But what began as a non-profit animal sanctuary, quickly turned into so much more when it became clear that our food and climate systems are so intertwined, that their stories cannot be told individually. By 2017, Sweet Farm expanded the scope of its work in order to drive impact across local and global scales. Fleeing the effects of climate change on the US’s West Coast, Sweet Farm now resides in Upstate New York, and has become the world’s first climate sanctuary. Joining farm animal rescue, education, regenerative agriculture, and hands-on support of breakthrough technologies, Sweet Farm works to help the planet meet and exceed its climate goals and remove animals from the food system.

As the first climate sanctuary, their focus remains rooted in fostering climate-consciousness and amplifying impact through holistic, systems-based approaches. In 2020, Sweet Farm pioneered the Goat-2-Meeting program, reaching over 400,000 individuals during 9,000+ virtual educational tours. This program continues to this day and is helping individuals connect with animals in an accessible way, teaching people how they can make their own personal impact on the lives of animals and the planet.

Nate Salpeter is a Ph.D. Mechanical Engineer with over 15 years experience researching and designing next generation nuclear reactors at industry-leading companies and National Laboratories. Nate is also a co-founder and general partner of SNØCAP, an early stage deep tech venture fund investing in technologies that remove pollution while dramatically reducing costs in the world’s largest industrial opportunities: those representing 1% or more of global carbon emissions.

Wayne Hsiung is an animal cruelty investigator, former law professor at Northwestern School of Law, and co-founder and Executive Director of The Simple Heart Initiative. He has led teams that have investigated and rescued animals from factory farms and slaughterhouses across the nation – challenging unconstitutional “ag-gag” laws in the process – and has organized successful campaigns to ban fur in San Francisco and California. He served as lead counsel (and, sometimes, defendant) in four “right to rescue” trials in which activists were prosecuted after being charged for giving aid to sick and dying animals in factory farms, garnering media attention from The New York Times. He is also a co-founder and former lead organizer of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere. 

Wayne’s work has been covered by WIRED, ABC’s Nightline, and on The Ezra Klein Show. 

He has published on the right to rescue in Harvard Law Review and climate change’s impact on animals in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Prior to his work as an animal advocate, Wayne practiced law at two national firms and studied law and economics at the University of Chicago, where he was an Olin Law and Economics Fellow, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He is the proud parent of Oliver, who was rescued from the dog meat trade.

Molly Elwood is a writer and creator of Elwood’s Organic Dog Meat. Elwood’s is a satirical, comprehensive, and wickedly effective social media phenomenon, bringing attention to the animals on our plate by pretending to eat the animals we love. What began as a grassroots movement designed to provoke a conversation about how we treat animals is now creating meaningful and tangible social change around the world. Learn more at ElwoodDogMeat.com

Vanessa is an expert in animal law and government accountability. Her work has been featured by CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and more. Vanessa co-founded and co-directs Advancing Law for Animals, a non-profit law firm for our non-human friends. There, she develops impact litigation to further the interests of animals exploited in research and food production. Vanessa is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School, and recognized as 2022-2023 Adjunct Professor of the Year. She regularly presents talks as an invited expert in animal law both nationally and abroad.

Jake Yapp has worked with Charlie Brooker, Ricky Gervais, and once accidentally told Bette Midler to shut up. He’s had several series of his own on BBC Radio in the UK, written and appeared in numerous TV shows, and was a regular columnist for Vegan Life magazine. Over the last few years he’s moved almost all of his work into the vegan activism-related sphere, and is proud to be a regular contributor to Elwood’s Organic Dog Meat.

Michael is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker who specializes in stories that reveal the rich inner lives of non-human animals. His work has been featured nationally and internationally through HBO Films, Netflix, Showtime, PBS Nature, Nat Geo, CBS, Vox, and the Cannes International Film Festival.