Serving Sustainability

David Fechner is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with the Low Harm Hedonism Initiative at The University of Queensland, Australia. He is passionate about reducing suffering for all sentient beings and ensuring that current and future generations can enjoy the beauty of our planet. Currently, Dr. Fechner collaborates with restaurants and hotels to help transform the tourism industry to be more sustainable. With industry partners, he develops and tests ways to encourage consumers to behave in more environmentally sustainable ways, such as ordering plant-based dishes or not wasting food. Dr. Fechner holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Sports Marketing from Griffith University.

Heather Kolakowski is a lecturer in food and beverage management at Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration and Associate Director of the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures. She teaches several food and beverage courses, including “Restaurant Management” and “Nonprofit Social Enterprise and Food Justice.” Ms. Kolakowski is also the faculty advisor for Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC), the student-run hospitality showcase conference that allows students the opportunity to put theory into practice each spring while taking on leadership responsibilities. She is the recipient of the 2017 Kaplan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellowship for her dedication to service learning.

Katie Cantrell is Director of Corporate Outreach for the Better Food Foundation, where she is focused on helping businesses craft sustainable food policies. Ms. Cantrell is also the founder and current board chair of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition. For more than a decade, she has led workshops on the social and ecological hazards of industrial animal agriculture and consulted on food policy at universities, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations. Ms. Cantrell’s materials have been used as a resource by food justice advocates around the world, and she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Meredith Marin is the founder and chief executive officer of Vegan Hospitality, the industry leader for vegan-friendly hospitality consulting worldwide. As CEO, she leads the largest global network of professionally trained vegan hospitality consultants in 19 countries and 18 U.S. states. In 2019, Ms. Marin founded Vegan Hospitality to support restaurants and hotel groups on the Caribbean island of Aruba to become vegan friendly so they could confidently serve guests with dietary requests, achieve sustainability targets, gain more positive reviews, and increase staff professional development in plant-based cooking and niche customer service. Soon after, the island was recognized as the most vegan friendly in the Caribbean. Ms. Marin’s expertise has been featured in local Caribbean publications as well as Menu International Magazine, Destination Magazine, and Plant Based News. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the City University of New York – Hunter College, with a background in community wellness organizing.