Nutritional Resilience & Performance
Our food choices also impact anxiety levels and stress, both of which can impair the inner shield of our resilience. Saliva is really the first defense to elevate our level of digestion, immune strength and overall resilience. Learn some of the silent and hidden foods that damage our resilience and alter our saliva production. Discover the importance that saliva is for recovering from illness and bringing about homeostasis. Learn tips and tools for helping you detect if you have a saliva output that is beneficial to you and how to correct if it is not optimal. Have an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of what emerging research is saying for its impact with immune system and digestion.
Unlocking the Keys to EAT this WAY and FEEL That!
We know nutrition and what we eat can affect us greatly. However, many of us haven’t made a good awareness link to Eat THIS, Feel THAT and Perform like THIS. Can you eat for better sleep? Can you choose foods to maximize your energy midafternoon and minimize the fatigue dip? How about eat to calm nerves, alleviate jet lag and even build immune system resilience. In two sessions, explore all the links of great high-performance eating to create the state you want for your day. Forty percent of the way you FEEL right now is due to your last meal. What IF we could think ahead — what do you have to do in the next two hours — you could design your eating!!
Patti T. Milligan, PhD, RD, CNS, has been in the nutrition field for 40 years. She just completed her doctorate in Neuroscience of Taste with her thesis on saliva and its impact on jet lag and kids’ taste buds. She has conducted nutritional research with US national athletes, as well as created and taught corporate wellness programs throughout the US and Europe. She has authored hundreds of articles and has appeared on numerous national TV news segments. She consults with high level executives and C level leadership on human resilience, performance brain nutrition and regenerative nutrition protocols. She has developed a travel resilience kit — Personal Jet Fuel to keep you well (renewal kit.com).
Dr. Steve Katz has been a lifelong athlete (including professional baseball) and yoga/chiropractic practitioner. His passion for mindful swimming was ignited after experiencing a Total Immersion workshop in 2015. He experienced such immediate improvement in the ease, efficiency, and pleasure of swimming freestyle that he dedicated himself to certifying as a Total Immersion coach and achieved coach certification in 2021. He believes swimming is the perfect means to safe and mindful fitness at any age.
Violinist Kate Hatmaker is the founder and Executive/Artistic Director of Art of Élan, a San Diego-based chamber music organization committed to bringing innovative classical music to diverse audiences (www.artofelan.org), and has been a violinist with the San Diego Symphony since 2006. She has played with a wide variety of American orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the New World Symphony. She completed her Master of Music degree at Carnegie Mellon University and her undergraduate training at both the University of Iowa and the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.
Music and spirituality have always been intertwined in the artistic vision of trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and activist Sean Jones. Mr. Jones sang and performed as a child with the church choir in his hometown of Warren, Ohio, and switched from playing the drums to the trumpet at the age of 10.
Chloé Doutre-Roussel is an author, consultant, educator, and internationally recognized expert with more than 35 years of experience in fine cacao and chocolate. A former buyer at Fortnum and Mason, shop manager at Ladurée, author of The Chocolate Connoisseur, and creator of Chloe Chocolat in Paris, she has also worked with El Ceibo, a cooperative of cocoa farmers in Bolivia, to launch a vertically integrated tree to bar to bonbon brand. Chloe is a regular juror at the Academy of Chocolate Awards (AOC) and at the Northwest Chocolate Festival. She is member of honor of the AOC, founding member of the Academia del Chocolate of Ecuador, member of the Advisory Board of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association (FCIA), and co-chair of the Chocolate Committee for the Good Food Awards. Find her online at 
Melissa Kravetz is an Associate Professor of History and Co-Director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Longwood University, where she has worked since 2013. She also teaches K-12 teachers in the Alexander Lebenstein Teacher Education Institute at the Virginia Holocaust Museum every summer. Her first book, Women Doctors in Weimar and Nazi Germany: Maternalism, Eugenics, and Professional Identity was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2019.
Laura Liswood, JD/MBA is a passionate advocate for leadership, diversity and inclusion and is a sought-after speaker, author, and global thought leader on these topics. She particularly enjoys highly interactive sessions with her audiences and uses humor and research to convey her message. She created a PBS documentary and book on her interviews with women presidents and prime ministers and was appointed Managing Director for Global Leadership and Diversity at Goldman Sachs. After 9/11 Laura decided to become a first responder, and became a police officer in the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department, retiring as a sergeant. She is the author of four books, including The Loudest Duck: Moving Beyond Diversity, and The Elephant and the Mouse: Moving Beyond the Illusion of Inclusion
Li Huai received her BA in fine arts at the Beijing Film Academy and her MFA in art at the California Institute of the Arts. She is on the faculty of the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego. Li Huai’s specialties include installation, painting, drawing, multimedia, and Chinese calligraphy. In thematic terms, her work deals with various issues related to East-West cultural interaction in an increasingly transnational age, including issues involving the Asian diaspora. Her major one person shows include Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Chinese Historical Museum, The Arts House (Singapore), The Substation Gallery (Singapore), Carroll Gallery (Tulane University), Hong Kong City University Gallery, Edinburgh University Matthew Architecture Gallery, Galleria Ninapi (Ravenna, Italy), Primo Piano Gallery (Rimini, Italy), Art Center (National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan), Forum (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France), California Center for the Arts, Faculty Club (University California San Diego), National Taiwan University (Riran Hall, Taipei), and Schwarzman College (Tsinghua University, Beijing). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions in various national and international venues including the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Morlan Gallery (Transylvania University), the Tijuana Cultural Museum (Mexico), the Centre Internationale d’Art Contemporain (Montreal), the Third Chengdu Biennale (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China), the Chinese American Museum (Los Angeles), Biennale Disegno (Rimini, Italy), Institute of Contemporary Art (San Diego), California Center for the Arts, and in various contemporary art spaces in South Africa, Japan, and Italy. 
Paul Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, San Diego, and inaugural holder of the UCSD Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History. He has produced 20 books (authored, coauthored, and coedited) including Chinese Village, Socialist State (winner of the 1993 Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association for Asian Studies). Another book, China on Film: A Century of Exploration, Confrontation, and Controversy, examines the history of Chinese cinema. He has won three distinguished teaching awards: UC San Diego Alumni Association (1998), Chancellor’s Associates (2009), and Academic Senate (2003). Pickowicz has graduated 38 PhD students. He has held visiting appointments at Oxford, National University of Singapore, University of Edinburgh, University of Heidelberg, East China Normal University, City University of Hong Kong, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Renmin University, and Schwarzman College (Tsinghua University). He is associate producer of the documentary film China in Revolution, 1911-1949 (1989). Pickowicz was honored by the German government in 2016 with a Humboldt Research Award for lifetime accomplishments in research and teaching.
Aleck Karis has performed recitals, chamber music, and concertos across the Americas, Europe, Japan, and China. As the pianist of the new music ensemble Speculum Musicae, he has participated in over a hundred premieres and performed at major American and European festivals. His appearances with orchestra have ranged from concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin to those of Stravinsky, Messiaen and Carter. His seven solo discs on Bridge Records are: Chopin/Carter/Schumann, Mozart, Stravinsky, Cage, Feldman/Webern/Wolpe, Poulenc, and most recently, Debussy. His two discs on Roméo Records are Music of Philip Glass and Late Chopin. He has studied at the Manhattan School and Juilliard, and his teachers include William Daghlian, Artur Balsam and Beveridge Webster. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the UC San Diego music department.
Keith Macpherson, a Canadian mindfulness coach, speaker, and author, has dedicated over two decades to empowering individuals through mindfulness practices. His transformative breakthroughs guide people toward their best lives. In 2018, he authored the bestselling book “
Radha Botofasina is a well-known Afro-Cuban American harpist, pianist, music producer and vocalist from Brooklyn, New York. Botofasina was mentored by Alice Coltrane, the wife of jazz legend John Coltrane, and sang background vocals on four of Coltrane’s sacred music albums:Divine Songs, Infinite Chants, Glorious Chants, Sacred Language of Ascension.
Sohailla Digsby is a registered dietitian, author, and international speaker. She has been a group exercise instructor since she was a teenager. She is a voice of reason – bringing clarity amidst all the nutrition fads and confusing misinformation that abound in the health and fitness space. She partners with fitness professionals to help them launch 8-week challenges that help their clients get the results that workouts alone won’t deliver. Sohailla is the recipient of several awards, including the 2018 Outstanding Alumnus of the Year for Augusta University’s Dietetic Internship, 2016 SCW Presenter of the Year Award and the Georgia Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics Media Award in 2014. She’s a mom of two boys, now 17 and 20, and a 14-year-old diva she adopted from China. She married the fella that asked her to the Senior Prom: though she said no to Prom, they’ve been married for over 25 years.
Beth Ricanati, MD, has spent her career focused on improving the well-being of her patient’s lives, in traditional medical clinics, wellness programs, and now as an author/speaker. She has worked at the Center for Women’s Health Center at NY Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center and at the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s Health Center and in the Clinic’s Wellness Institute as Medical Director for a lifestyle modification program. Today she volunteers weekly at the Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, the largest clinic in the country for the underserved. For the last several years, she has been speaking (both live and digitally) around the country, based on the premise of her award-winning book, Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs. Dr. Ricanati lives and works in Southern California.
Bethany Yarrow carries a legacy of folk music passed down through her family. For over two decades, she has been on a journey exploring the roots of American spiritual music, performing with musicians from all over the world, including Haiti, Niger, and Brazil. Over the last five years, Bethany has translated more than 150 traditional songs for the Orixás, the great pantheon of Afro-Brazilian deities expressed in the forces of nature who are at the center of her own devotional practice.
Liz Callaway is a Tony and Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning actress, singer and recording artist. Her Broadway credits include Merrily We Roll Along, Baby, Miss Saigon, and Cats. She has also provided the singing voice for numerous animated movies, including the Oscar-nominated Anastasia. Her latest album, To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
Kathe Wallace, PT, is an internationally recognized pioneer pelvic health clinician, educator and author in pelvic health and pelvic floor dysfunction. She is the author of Reviving Your Sex Life after Childbirth and multiple educational handouts to restore the pelvic floor. She has focused on pelvic health since 1988. She currently serves as a Clinical Instructor, Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, at the University of Washington in Seattle. Kathe has been honored to receive both the Washington State Physical Therapy Association Clinical Excellence Award and the American Physical Therapy Association Academy of Pelvic Health, Elizabeth Noble Award for providing extraordinary and exemplary service to the field of pelvic health physical therapy.
Dawn Sandalcidi, PT, RCMT, BCB-PMD specializes in pelvic muscle dysfunction and orthopedic manual therapy. She has trained medical professionals in manual therapy both nationally and internationally since 1992. Dawn is also Board-Certified Biofeedback in Pelvic Muscle Dysfunction (BCB-PMD). Dawn has actively been treating patients since 1982 at Physical Therapy Specialists in Centennial, Colorado. In 2018, Dawn was awarded the Elizabeth Noble Award by the American Physical Therapy Association Section on Women’s Health for providing extraordinary and exemplary service to the field of physical therapy for men, women and children.
Nancy Cetel, MD, is an engaging and passionate physician, author and professional speaker. Following her graduation from the New York University School of Medicine, she obtained her postgraduate training in Reproductive Endocrinology at the University of California, San Diego, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Southern California. Her pioneering research in hormonal issues led to numerous publications and awards. Dr. Cetel is often referenced in books and journals, and is a frequently invited lecturer nationally and internationally. Live appearances and interviews have brought her acclaim as an accomplished communicator and advocate for an informed public. She is the author of Double Menopause: What to Do When Both You and Your Mate Go through Hormonal Changes Together. Her passions include her family, vegetarian cooking, dancing, and the joys of being a grandparent.