About US
Conference Organizing Committee
The 2020 Conference Organizing Committee is made up of lawyers, academics, students and civil society actors from across Canada. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at conference@foodlaw.ca.
Sarah berger-richardson
Sarah Berger Richardson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law (Civil law section). She is a member of the Law Society of Ontario and President of the Canadian Association of Food Law and Policy. Her research focuses on the regulation of the agrifood sector, with a particular emphasis on the meat industry. She holds a Doctor of Civil Law from McGill University and her dissertation examined the ways that socio-cultural and moral perspectives about how livestock should be raised and slaughtered are considered in the design of meat inspection systems. In 2018-2019, she was a visiting fellow at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. She completed her Master of Law (LL.M) at Tel Aviv University, where she was a research fellow at the Manna Center in Food Safety and Security. Previously, she served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Israel and the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal.
Abra Brynne
Abra is a nationally respected food systems advocate. She has worked closely with farmers and on food systems for almost thirty years, with a priority on food value chains and the regulatory regimes that impede or support them. She is currently the Executive Director of the Central Kootenay Food Policy Council. She has held leadership positions on numerous Boards and committees over many years, all connected with healthy communities and food in some way.
Marsha Simone Cadogan
Dr. Marsha Simone Cadogan is an international intellectual property rights lawyer with expertise in trademarks, geographical indications (food and non-food based), design rights and copyright law and policy. Other aspects of her work include emerging technologies (artificial intelligence, blockchains and 3D printing automation) interface with intellectual property law, preferential free trade agreements and the direction of IP laws and, international law theories and sustainable development. She has a PhD in intellectual property rights and is called to the Bar of Ontario. She is also the Canadian representative on AIPPI's (International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights) Standing Committee on Geographical Indications.
Jessica Cytryn
Jessica is an associate in McCarthy Tétrault LLP’s Business Group and Retail and Consumer Markets Group in Montreal. Drawing on over a decade of experience working in food, beverage, and hospitality, Jessica assists businesses operating in these sectors, among others, in connection with their regulatory and compliance obligations and commercial matters. Jessica holds a WSET Level 2 Award in Wine and Spirits and is the President of the Montreal Restaurant Workers Relief Fund. She organizes wine tastings in her spare time.
Patrícia Galvão Ferreira
Dr. Patrícia Galvão Ferreira is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, cross-appointed to the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), at the University of Windsor. She is the director of the Transnational Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. Prior to joining Windsor Law, Dr. Galvão Ferreira was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), attending the UNFCCC negotiations leading up to and following the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement. She has been a visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University and at the FGV Law School in São Paulo. Dr. Galvão Ferreira holds an S.J.D. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral degree in dynamics of global change from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the same University. She also holds an LL.M in international human rights law from the Notre Dame University Faculty of Law and an LL.B from the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil.
Amélie Gouin
Amélie is a senior associate at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. She specialises in commercial litigation and practices mainly in the fields of competition law, advertisement and marketing, extraordinary recourses, shareholder disputes, fraud and intellectual property. She completed her studies in civil law and common law at McGill University. Since 2011, Ms. Gouin has been involved in the activities of the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal. She currently serves as supervising lawyer for McGill’s Food and Agriculture Law Clinic.
Glenford Jameson
Glenford is a lawyer at G. S. Jameson & Company, where his practice is focused on corporate-commercial and administrative-regulatory law in the business context, where he advises organizations on structure, corporate governance, and regulatory compliance. Glenford leverages his significant legal experience in the food sector for entities ranging from start-ups to multinationals that encounter a high degree of regulation, or that seek to challenge regulatory regimes under which food is produced and sold in Canada. He is also adjunct faculty at Michigan State College of Law, where he teaches Canadian Food Law and Regulation.
Nadia Lambek
Nadia Lambek is a Doctor of Juridical Science candidate at the University of Toronto, and a human rights lawyer, researcher and advocate focused on food system transitions and the rights of working people. Nadia is adjunct faculty at Vermont Law School where she teaches courses on global food security governance. In 2018, she worked with the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism to the UN Committee on World Food Security on a report monitoring realization of the right to food. She is an editor of Rethinking Food Systems: Structural Challenges, New Strategies and the Law (Springer 2014).
Darcy Lindberg
Darcy Lindberg is mixed rooted Plains Cree, with his relations coming from Samson Cree Nation in Alberta and the Battleford-area in Saskatchewan. His past and current research focuses on Plains Cree law, ecological governance through Indigenous legal orders, gender and Indigenous ceremonies, and comparative approaches in Plains Cree and Canadian constitutionalism. As an Assistant Professor with the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law, he teaches courses on constitutional law, Indigenous legal traditions, treaties, and Indigenous environmental legal orders.
Lauren McCulloch
Lauren is a lawyer whose practice encompasses a broad range of civil and commercial litigation, including insurance defence, property damage, fraud, construction disputes, and professional negligence. She completed her J.D. at Dalhousie University, specializing her degree in health law. Prior to law school Lauren attended the University of Guelph and obtained an undergraduate degree in Nutrition and Nutraceutical Sciences and a graduate degree in Human Health and Nutritional Sciences.
Heather McLeod-Kilmurray
Heather McLeod-Kilmurray is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa and Co-Director of its Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability (CELGS). Her research and teaching focus on Food Law, Toxic Torts and Environmental Justice. She is co-author of The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts with Lynda Collins, and co-editor of the forthcoming Canadian Food Law and Policy with Nathalie Chalifour and Angela Lee. She co-teaches a Food Law course with Angela Lee. She is a member of the Ottawa Food Policy Council and a the Management Advisory Board of Wilfrid Laurier University's Centre for Sustainable Food Systems.
Linda Nowlan
Linda Nowlan leads the UBC Sustainability Initiative as Senior Director. She has over twenty five years of experience in sustainability as a public interest environmental lawyer and NGO leader. Linda is an Adjunct Professor at the Allard School of Law and spent two years as a Faculty Research Associate with the UBC Program on Water Governance. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of Nature and the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, and previously served on Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team and the Boards of FarmFolk CityFolk, the Fraser Basin Council and Smart Growth BC. At West Coast Environmental Law, Linda served as Executive Director, Staff Lawyer, and Director of the Marine Program where she led a team to strengthen ocean protection through Canadian and Indigenous law. She also worked at WWF-Canada, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and a Vancouver litigation law firm. Her advocacy has contributed to many legal reforms, and her publications cover topics ranging from groundwater protection to marine spatial planning to extinction art.
Stepan Wood
Stepan Wood (he/his) is the Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability and the Director of the Centre for Law & the Environment at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. Stepan’s research relates to corporate social responsibility, sustainability, globalization, transnational governance, voluntary standards, climate change, and environmental law. He leads the interdisciplinary Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) project, an international research network that examines the drivers, dynamics, and impacts of competition, cooperation, coordination, and conflict among transnational initiatives to regulate global business. His co-authored book, A Perilous Imbalance: The Globalization of Canadian Law and Governance (UBC Press, 2010), was shortlisted for the Donald Smiley award for best book on Canadian politics. Professor Wood is founding co-chair of the Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot, Vice-Chair of the Canadian national committee on environmental management systems standards, and a lead Canadian negotiator of the ISO 14001 and 14004 standards.
Victoria Baylis
Victoria is a third year JD student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia (UBC), and a fellow of the faculty’s Centre for Law and the Environment. Her focus is on fostering sustainable food systems that work in harmony with, and not against, the natural environment. Her main concerns encompass a lack of food security, the need for a greater emphasis on local food production, and the promotion of greater corporate responsibility. Before beginning her JD, Victoria completed a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in biology and ecology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She has since acted as the Vice-President of UBC’s Animal Justice Chapter, and has worked extensively as a clinician with the Law Students’ Legal Advice Program, helping to serve underprivileged clients. Having seen how her skills and experience can have an impact on the individual level, she approached environmental law from a broader policy perspective. Through her work as a Summer Law Student with West Coast Environmental Law, Victoria contributed to stronger environmental protections. She is honoured to be a voice for students in this platform.