About Our Judges

The judging panel for the Food & Water Watch “I Heart Tap Water” Video Contest is made up of a number of talented and well-respected professionals representing a wide range of fields, including film, television, food and wine, academia and the environmental movement.

Alec Baldwin, actor

Alec Baldwin last appeared on stage in the Roundabout's 2006 production of Entertaining Mr. Sloane, directed by Scott Ellis. Other stage includes Loot (Broadway-1986), Prelude to a Kiss (Circle Rep.- 1990), A Street Car Named Desire (Broadway-1992), Macbeth (NYSF-1998), The Twentieth Century (Roundabout-2004). On film Baldwin has appeared in Beetle Juice, The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross, Malice, The Edge, State and Main, The Cooler (National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor, Oscar nom), The Aviator and The Departed. On television Baldwin can be seen on NBC’s “30 Rock”, winner of the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Baldwin is also a dedicated supporter of numerous causes related to public policy, including People For The American Way, The Radiation and Public Health Project and The Water Keeper Alliance, among many others.

"Bottled water is not as environmentally friendly as people think it is," says actor and celebrity judge Alec Baldwin.

Joe Bastianich, co-owner of Del Posto restaurant, New York City

A frequent contributor on NBC's “Today” show and author of Vino Italiano, Joe Bastianich is one of the nation's most prominent restaurateurs and wine experts. After a brief career on Wall Street, Bastianich spent a year traveling Italy, immersing himself in the traditions of Italian winemaking and cuisine. He opened his first restaurant, New York City's Becco, with his mother, Lidia Bastianich. In 1998, he partnered with Mario Batali to open the now legendary Babbo Ristorante Enoteca. The duo would go on to open Lupa, Esca, Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, Casa Mono, Bar Jamón and Del Posto in New York City, Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles, and B&B, Enoteca San Marco and Carnevino in Las Vegas. He has also opened Lidia's in Kansas City and Pittsburgh with Lidia Bastianich, as well as Italian Wine Merchants, a upscale retail shop, and Bastianich s.r.l and La Mozza s.r.l., both wine estates in Italy. In 2005, he won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional.

Shelley Chinnan, National Organizer of the Student Campaign for Child Survival

Shelley is a the National Organizer for the Student Campaign for Child Survival which engages students on a national level about issues that affect child health and child survival in the Global South.

Saul Garlick, founder and executive director of the Student Movement for Real Change

Saul Garlick, a 2005 Truman Scholar, recently completed a Masters degree in American foreign policy and International Economics at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He is the founder, chairman and executive director of the Student Movement for Real Change, a national non-profit organization that is mobilizing young leaders on issues of health and education in neglected regions of the world. He also serves as Ambassador for the United States for the Buffelshoek Trust, an organization building schools in rural South Africa. At SAIS, Saul is Managing Editor of the SAIS Review. He has worked on Capitol Hill for Diana DeGette (D-CO) and as acting desk officer for Angola in the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State. His Masters thesis was on US-South African Relations in the post-apartheid era. Saul received his BA with honors in 2006 from Johns Hopkins University .

"Having worked on these issues for years, I've seen firsthand how young people are taking the lead in addressing the global water crisis. Young people are learning the incredible value of tap water, how lucky we are [in the US] to have quality water that doesn't even need to be purchased in an expensive bottle! This is an exciting international movement to keep water safe and make it accessible for everyone. I look forward to judging the contest and seeing what they come up with!"

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch

Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food & Water Watch. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. Experienced in developing policy positions and legislative strategies, she is also a skilled and accomplished organizer, having lobbied and developed grassroots field strategy and action plans. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization's 30 state–based groups. From 1989 to 1995 she was at the Union of Concerned Scientists where as a senior organizer, she coordinated broad–based, grassroots sustainable energy campaigns in several states. She has an M.S. in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland.

“We will need enormous public support to get Congress to dedicate the billions of dollars needed to ensure safe and affordable water for future generations. With this video contest students are building support among tomorrow’s leaders to make the smart and healthy choice of tap water over bottled water.” 

Elizabeth Kantor, associate producer for National Geographic

Elizabeth L. Kanter is an Associate Producer at National Geographic Television, where she focuses on science and wildlife films such as Emmy-nominated Hyenas at War, The Incredible Human Machine, and a brand new hosted engineering series.  Her cinematography is featured in The Condom Controversy, which is part of FRONTLINE/World's online Rough Cut series, and in Population Action International's Abstaining from Reality, which premiered in British Parliament and on Capitol Hill.  Kanter produced, shot, and edited oceanography films that are on exhibit at the award-winning Pratt Museum in Homer, Alaska.  She has also worked with several independent filmmakers, including wildlife and Arctic specialist Daniel Zatz and political and activist-minded Karil Daniels.  As an educator, Kanter ran the KQED Youth Media Corps at San Francisco's public television and radio station, where she instructed urban high school students in video production and web design and oversaw production of youth media campaigns focusing on community topics.  Elizabeth L. Kanter has a BA in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University.

Liz  Miller, director of the new documentary film The Waterfront 

Liz Miller is a documentary filmmaker, community media artist, and professor with an MFA in Electronic Arts from Renssellaer Polytechnic Insitute and an BA in Social Thought and Political Economics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For the last fifteen years, Miller has developed documentary and community media projects with youth, senior citizens and a wide range of human rights organizations.

Miller has exhibited her work around the world and won awards from the International Association of Women in Radio and Film, Latin American Studies Association, and the National Educational Media Network. THE WATER FRONT is her most recent work and has already won two awards; the Ramsar Medwet Award at Ecofilms in Greece and the Environmental Award, Media that Matters.

Read her full bio here.

Maury Rubin, of City Bakery and Birdbath Bakery

Maury Rubin is a two-time Emmy Award winning television producer and director who created City Bakery after taking a one-week pastry course in France in 1986 during a vacation and deciding
to devote himself to pastry. He is best known in the kitchen for dessert tarts and one-of-a-kind hot chocolate. He is a vintage-clothes-wearing dedicated-recycler and devoted farmer's market consumer who created Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery as a means for combining his interest in food and concern for the environment.

Read more about Green Bakery here.

Alan Snitow, producer, writer and director of the documentary film Thirst

Alan Snitow is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. His book Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water (co-authored with Deborah Kaufman and Michael Fox) was published by Wiley and Sons imprint Jossey Bass in 2007. His films include “Thirst” (PBS's POV series, 2004),  “Secrets of Silicon Valley” (PBS–Independent Lens, 2001), and “Blacks and Jews” (Sundance Film Festival, PBS-POV, 1997). Prior to founding Snitow–Kaufman Productions, he was a News Producer for Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU–TV for 12 years. As News Director at the Bay Area Pacifica Radio station KPFA–FM, he won a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award for Best Local Newscast. He is a graduate of Cornell University and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Find out more about Alan here.