John R. Finnegan Jr.
Dean and Professor
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

John R. Finnegan Jr. has guided the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, one of the leading schools in the nation, since 2005. Working with division heads, associate deans, faculty, staff, and alumni, Dean Finnegan has advanced the school as a leader in research, education, e-learning, and community-engaged partnerships, and prepared it to meet the health challenges that will shape the world of 2030 and beyond.

During Dean Finnegan’s tenure, the school’s faculty has increased more than 40 percent and the number of its graduate and professional students has more than doubled. He believes that the school’s impact on the future of health in Minnesota and around the world is anchored both in its research and also in the education of next generation health professionals and scientists. As dean, he draws on the University’s land-grant tradition emphasizing collaboration, intelligent risk-taking, support and reward of achievement, and effective decision-making.

While working on his PhD in Mass Communication in the 1980s at the University of Minnesota, Dean Finnegan joined the Minnesota Heart Health Program in the School of Public Health to work as a media writer and producer of community health promotion campaigns. In 1985, he joined the faculty in the division of Epidemiology and Community Health, where he developed a research focus on health information campaigns and the role of mass media in health behavior and social change.

A true believer in community service, he currently is chair of the Board of Children’s Heart Link, Minneapolis, MN; and is a board member of HealthPartners Research and Education Institute, Bloomington, MN; the Minnesota Department of Health’s Office of Minority and Multicultural Health, Advisory Committee; the World Federation of Academic Institutions of Global Health (WFAIGH). At the University of Minnesota, he co-chairs the President’s Initiative to Prevent Sexual Misconduct, a public health issue of national importance.

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer
Professor and Head of the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, is a Mayo professor and head of the division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public. As division head, she works to ensure that faculty, staff, and students are engaging in state-of-the art research and training aimed at improving the health of the public. Neumark-Sztainer’s own research focuses on a broad spectrum of eating and weight-related outcomes including eating disorders, unhealthy weight control behaviors, body image, dietary intake, weight stigmatization and obesity. She is dedicated to ensuring that her research has a positive impact on the health of the public, particularly vulnerable populations. She leads an active program of research including the largest and most comprehensive longitudinal body of research in the U.S. that examines predictors of eating- and weight-related problems in young people. Current research interests include investigating the potential for the practice of yoga as a tool to address eating disorders and relevant risk factors. Neumark-Sztainer is passionate about training students. She is the director of a new applied epidemiology training program for PhD students and post-doctoral fellows aimed at training the next generation of researchers to promote positive weight-related health among youth and families from diverse ethnic/racial and socio-economic populations. Neumark-Sztainer has published over 500 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her research has been recognized with awards from the Academy for Eating Disorders, the National Eating Disorders Association, and the Eating Disorders Coalition and received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health to fund her work. 

Tricia Alexander
MPH Student
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Tricia Alexander is a second-year public health nutrition MPH student and dietetic intern at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She is a research assistant for the Project EAT Study and a new intern for the People of Color and Indigenous (POCI) Caucus. Additionally, she is the nutrition coordinator for the student-led Phillips Neighborhood Clinic and the second year graduate coordinator for the Student Nutrition Advocacy Center (SNAC) at Boynton Health.

Kelsey Gantzer
Rutabaga Project

Kelsey Gantzer is the manager of the Rutabaga Project, a joint initiative between Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA) and Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability (IRPS). The Rutabaga Project’s mission is to make healthy, local food accessible to everyone in Minnesota’s Iron Range and beyond. Kelsey has a background in non-profit operations management and communications. She previously worked for the Minnesota Elementary School Principal’s Association (MESPA) and the Mill City Farmers Market.

Lisa Harnack
Professor
University of MInnesota School of Public Health

Lisa Harnack, DrPH, RD, is a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She conducts research to identify policies and programs that are effective in supporting good nutrition and health for all. Harnack has led or collaborated on dozens of studies and published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers. She also co-directs the Healthy Weight Research Center and directs the University of Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center, a center that provides software and services that support the dietary assessment needs of hundreds of researchers across the U.S. 

Thierry Ibri
Chief Operations and Program Officer
Minnesota Central Kitchen, an initiative of Second Harvest Heartland

Thierry Ibri is the chief operations and program officer at Second Harvest Heartland, the second largest food bank in the nation. He is responsible for driving and overseeing all end-to-end sourcing and distribution of meals to the community, including partner relations and programs like SNAP outreach and child hunger efforts. Passionate about food, Ibri joins Second Harvest Heartland with 30 years of experience in the food industry and a career spanning three continents with Sodexo, General Mills and most recently founding The Fresh Connection, a food delivery startup in the Twin Cities. Thierry is both professionally and personally connected with the issues of ending hunger through community partnerships. During college, Ibri co-founded “Les Restos du Coeur,” the first large scale food shelf in France, providing him with a very early opportunity to interact with various community members to source and collect food, find locations, organize distribution and to grasp the importance of dedicated volunteers. Ibri earned his master of business administration from the Harvard Business School and his bachelor of business administration from ESC Le Havre.

Melissa Laska
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Melissa Laska is a Distinguished McKnight University professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, in the division of Epidemiology and Community Health. She is also co-director of the Obesity Prevention Center and a member of the Masonic Cancer Center.

Laska’s expertise is in nutrition and obesity prevention. Over the past decade she has led a multifaceted research portfolio, with particular interests in modifiable and contextual determinants of obesity, dietary patterns, and food environments. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Heart Association, and she has co-authored more than 150 peer- reviewed publications to date. Laska is currently principal investigator (PI) of an NIH R01 investigating local policy impacts on community-level healthy food availability and serves as PI of the University of Minnesota NOPREN (Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network) research site.

Ellie Lucas
Founder and Executive Director
Hunger Impact Partners

Hunger Impact Partners’ Founder and Executive Director Ellie Lucas served as the chief campaign officer of Hunger-Free Minnesota. This four-year campaign was the first-of-its-kind, cross-sector, all-out statewide effort to help close Minnesota’s 100-million meal gap between 2011 and 2014. Based on a collective impact model, the campaign set out to add 60 million meals and reached 70 million, with a cumulative investment of more than $9.7 million and countless hours in communities across Minnesota. Through its eight targeted initiatives, 431 projects were competitively funded and as many as 3,000 people were engaged, ranging from executives with Minnesota’s Fortune 500s to research experts to volunteers on the frontlines of hunger relief. Fundamentally, Lucas’ entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen, and creativity in solving problems have made her an effective champion, both in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. She has 25 years of experience in senior management positions, where she honed expertise in public affairs, corporate relations and strategic marketing. Before joining Hunger-Free Minnesota, she was an equity partner in a technology startup, forging strategic partnerships and designing customized joint marketing programs with EBay, Best Buy and W3i. Before that, she was Executive Vice President of Tunheim Partners where she led national corporate communications, community relations and government affairs initiatives for Honeywell, Metris, Target Stores, American Express and First Data Corporation. Early in her career she worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide in the US Congress. Lucas’ strong sense of social justice led later in her career to community engagement work. She served on the board, including two terms as chairman, of The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), an international human rights organization based in Minnesota. CVT offers treatment, clinical training and research, and policy advocacy for victims of torture. It provides healing to survivors in Minnesota, Africa and the Middle East. It trains partners across the U.S. and in every region of the world. Its mission is to restore the dignity of the human spirit. Lucas also served on the Children’s Defense Fund scholarship program nomination committee. And, she is currently a founding member of the advisory board for Children’s HealthWatch, a nonpartisan network of pediatricians, public health researchers and policy and child health experts affiliated with Boston Medical Center that conducts primary research to inform public policies that impact children’s health.

Tasha Powell
Director of Operations and Co-Founder
Appetite for Change

Tasha Powell is director of operations and co-founder of Appetite for Change (AFC), an organization whose mission is to use food as a tool to build health, wealth, and social change in North Minneapolis. In her role, Powell supervises AFC’s community programs. She is passionate about food affordability and access for Northside families. She is a lifelong North Minneapolis resident, and is active in the local food justice movement to advocate for and give back to her community.

Dana Thompson (Mdewakanton Dakota, Wahpeton Sisseton)
Co-owner
The Sioux Chef

As co-owner of the company The Sioux Chef, Dana Thompson, lineal descendant of the Wahpeton-Sisseton and Mdewakanton Dakota tribes and lifetime Minnesota native, has been working within the food sovereignty movement for the past six years. Within that time, she has traveled extensively throughout tribal communities engaging in critical ways to improve food access. Last year Thompson jointly founded the non-profit NATIFS (North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems) for which she is acting executive director. Through this entity, she will focus her expertise on addressing and treating ancestral trauma through decolonized perspectives of honoring and leveraging Indigenous wisdom.