Our Team

Meet the Climate Farm School Team

Dr. Laney Siegner

Founder & Co-Director, Climate Farm School

Laney completed her Ph.D. at the U.C. Berkeley Energy and Resources Group in 2020. She researched sustainable, agroecological food systems and climate change education, and spent several summers working on regenerative farms while researching for her dissertation.  

She has published book chapters on teaching climate change in U.S. K-12 classrooms and on conducting participatory agroecology research. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as a middle school teaching fellow for 2 years in Boston, MA as part of an AmeriCorps National Teaching Fellowship. 

When she’s not teaching or learning, she enjoys being outside for a variety of physical activities – farming, worm composting, trail running, bird watching, or swimming in the ocean. Originally from the East Coast, she now lives on a farm in Sonoma County, California.

Ryan Peterson

Co-Director, Climate Farm School

Ryan Peterson is dedicated to regenerating ecosystems through food and agriculture. After beginning his career in finance, he decided to change course and study sustainability at UC Berkeley where he was captivated by the potential of food systems transformation. His master’s research focused on how policy can be used to promote agroecology in California.

He went on to train as a cook at Chez Panisse before helping to launch the Culinary and Food Systems Program at The Ecology Center, a regenerative farm and ecological education center in San Juan Capistrano, California. He has worked on farms in Maine, Northern and Southern California, and Hawaii.

He spends his time collaborating with farmers and chefs, developing educational events around regenerative agriculture, and reconnecting humans to nature through his cooking. He is deeply interested in the connection between healing ecosystems and ourselves. Originally from Massachusetts, Ryan now lives in Berkeley, California.

Claire Hambrick

Healthcare and Programs Coordinator, Climate Farm School

Claire Hambrick is passionate about promoting climate action and building community through regenerative farming practices and systems thinking approaches. These interests first sparked on a biodynamic farm in Hawaii where she lived and worked, studying the fundamentals of soil science, composting systems, and impacts of the industrial food system on communities in Hawaii. Claire adjusted her pre-med studies to incorporate the puzzle piece she felt was missing in human health fields: the nexus between climate, farming, nutrition, and community.

Claire earned her Bachelors of Science in Conservation Resource studies with a concentration in Community Nutrition and Agricultural Food Systems at UC Berkeley. She developed a thesis on California Food and Agricultural Policy, and pursued multiple educational projects that allowed her to combine her passion for art with agriculture.

Since then, Claire has worked on both local and international farms in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Napa & Nicaragua. Her recent certification in Global Agroecology keeps her thinking bigger about how change and resilience can come in so many forms, happen anywhere, and start with just one step.

Gary Podesto

Head of Culinary

Gary is committed to educating and inspiring change-makers through the lenses of cooking and experiential learning to revolutionize the global food system.

Studying the literary traditions of the western cannon left him full of theory and starved for the real life experience that is so often missing in academia. The need to learn a practical trade led him to his first kitchen job in his small college town of Chico, Ca. His formative years cooking in Northern California restaurants laid the ground work for an interest in local food systems which ultimately lead to a five year deep dive into farming and direct marketing by working for the Certified Farmers' Markets of Sacramento. There he became intimately connected to the web of producers and consumers the are the lifeblood of California's "farm-to-fork capital".

In 2016 Alice Waters asked him to join the team of cooks working in the celebrated kitchen of the downstairs restaurant at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. He's been happily manning the stoves and tending the hearth there ever since.

His goal as a chef is to revitalize the values of slow food by gathering around the table, promoting the values of edible education, regenerative agriculture, and climate-conscious ingredients.

Advisory Board

  • Kris Madsen

    PROFESSOR, UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH & FORMER FACULTY DIRECTOR AT BERKELEY FOOD INSTITUTE

  • Ed Colloton

    PARTNER EMERITUS, BESSEMER VENTURE PARTNERS

Co-Conspirators

  • Caiti Hachmyer

    FOUNDING FARMER EDUCATOR

  • Aubrie Maze

    FOUNDING FARMER EDUCATOR

  • Jim Colgan

    ALUMNI ADVISOR, JOURNALIST

  • Asha Agrawal

    ALUMNI ADVISOR, CLIMATE INVESTOR