Impact Room- For The Animals – Farmed Animals, Environment, Ethics, and Compassion
Eugene VeganFest has gathered a dynamic line-up of speakers in the Impact Room on a variety of topics that affect our natural world, our capacity for compassion, and our relationship to animals. The video links are posted below!
This room is organized and hosted by Compassionate Living.
2026 Impact Room Presentations
11:00 – 11:45 am
The Dharma Religions, Ahimsa, and Veganism
with Dr. Cogen Bohanec
Dr. Cogen Bohanec received his PhD from the Center for Dharma Studies (CDS) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. He holds a MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS) at GTU. He is an assistant professor at Arihanta Institute and an adjunction professor of Sanskrit at Clamont School of Theology. Cogen has spent nearly two decades studying, practicing and teaching a variety of Eastern Religions (Yoga, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, etc.).
He has received the initiation into the Hindu Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Sampradāya, a tradition he has studied for over a decade, both academically and as a devotee. As a PhD student at the Center for Dharma Studies (CDS) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, his dissertation research involves constructive Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava eco-theology. He has translated Sanskrit literature for over a decade academically, with over five years at UC Berkeley, and has studied both Yoga and Sanskrit in India.
12:00 – 12:45 pm
Vegan Made Easy: Practical Tips for Going Vegan
with Dr. Joanne Kong
Dr. Joanne Kong’s presentation will provide practical tips and know-how for those on their plant-based journey. A wide range of topics will be covered, including ways to make the transition, stocking your vegan kitchen, meal-planning, shopping, understanding food labels, plus advice on navigating social challenges, travel, and eating out. Beyond diet, other lifestyle aspects of vegan living will be explored as well. Joanne’s newly-released book, Vegan Made Easy: Practical Tips for Going Vegan, will be available for sale today!
Vegan advocate Dr. Joanne Kong has spoken throughout the United States, including talks at numerous vegfests, conferences, high schools, and universities. Her highly-praised TEDx talk, The Power of Plant-Based Eating, at over 1,000,000 views on YouTube, is placed on numerous websites internationally. Dr. Kong is the editor of Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers, released in 2021 by Lantern Publishing & Media. She also appears in the major documentary, Eating Our Way to Extinction, and as a critically-acclaimed concert pianist incorporates the arts into her animal advocacy with benefit concerts for animal sanctuaries, as well as unique Strands of Compassion events presented by VEGAN VIRTUOSI, a duo with cellist Dr. Christoph Wagner. Her new book, Vegan Made Easy: A Practical Guide to Plant-Based Living, is available for sale at today’s Eugene Veganfest! Dr. Kong’s website is www.vegansmakeadifference.com
1:00 – 1:45 pm
How To Be An Impactful Vegan
with Robert Cheeke
Robert Cheeke grew up on a farm in Corvallis, Oregon where he adopted a vegan lifestyle in 1995 at age 15, weighing just 120 pounds. Today he is the author of the books, Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness, Shred It!, Plant-Based Muscle, the New York Times bestseller, The Plant-Based Athlete and now his latest book, The Impactful Vegan.
He is often referred to as the “Godfather of Vegan Bodybuilding,” growing the industry from infancy in 2002, to where it is today. As a natural bodybuilding champion, Robert is considered one of VegNews magazine’s Most Influential Vegan Athletes. He tours around the world sharing his story of transformation from a skinny farm kid to champion vegan bodybuilder. Robert is the founder of Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness and VeganBodybuilding.com. He is a regular contributor to Forks Over Knives, The Center for Nutrition Studies, Plant Powered Athlete, Vegan Strong, and No Meat Athlete, is a former multi-sport athlete, and has followed a plant-based diet for more than 29 years.
For more about Robert, visit www.veganbodybuilding.com
2:00 – 2:45 pm
Building a World for Animal Freedom—and the Votes To Get There
with David Michelson
Most of us were never asked to vote on whether animals should be killed. We were just born into a world where they are. This talk is about what happens when we start asking voters what the world could look like if we actually met animals’ needs rather than killing, confining, and breeding them against their will. Drawing on lessons from the women’s suffrage movement, which ran fifty-four statewide campaigns before winning the right to vote nationwide, this presentation will make the case that asking voters to weigh in on animals’ most fundamental needs—even before we’re likely to win—is one of the most powerful tools we have for shifting culture, building a movement, and ultimately making the unthinkable seem inevitable. If you’d like to make this vote a reality in 2026, make sure to sign our petition at the Yes On IP28 table in the vendor hall.
David Michelson is the lead organizer behind a ballot initiative campaign in Oregon that seeks to ban the killing and breeding of all animals statewide—including those on farms, in research labs, and in the wild. David started this campaign in 2020, and the campaign is currently working on qualifying for the 2026 election.
Impact Room Presentation Videos
2025
Oregon’s Hidden Plant Based History and Promising Future
with Seth Tibbott, Mister Tofurky!
Seth Tibbott founded Turtle Island Foods in 1980, now “the Tofurky Company,” on $2500 savings from his 8-year career as a teacher/naturalist. For 15 years Seth pursued his dream while losing his shirt as a pioneer of the early plant-based foods movement. In 1995, Seth introduced the first nationally marketed vegan holiday roast named “Tofurky” which soon became the most well-known meat alternative brand in the United States. Seth has chronicled his “40-year overnight success story” in a new book, In Search of the Wild Tofurky. After appearing on NPR’s How I Built This, host Guy Raz said, “Seth Tibbott is an American original. His story is so outlandish, so unbelievable…you’d think it was fiction.”
Food Justice: How Your Food Choices Can Change the World with lauren Ornelas
In this presentation, lauren will examine various interconnected abuses in our food system, which include not only non-human animals, but farm worker injustices, slavery, access to healthy foods in Black and Brown and Indigenous communities, and environmental racism. It will call upon all of us to use the power of our food choices to be a catalyst for change.
lauren Ornelas has been a deeply involved animal rights activist since 1987 and is the founder and Senior Programs Director of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.). Food Empowerment Project is a vegan food justice nonprofit that promotes veganism, champions for the rights of farm workers, highlights the lack of access to healthy foods in Black and Brown communities, and raise awareness about the worst forms of slavery, including child labor, in the chocolate industry. Watch lauren’s TEDx talk on The Power of Our Food Choices.
Seeing is Believing: Undercover Investigators Expose the Truth About Animal Farming with Erin Wing
Erin Wing is currently serving as the Deputy Director of Investigations for Animal Outlook and previously worked as an undercover investigator. Over the course of 2 years, she went on to complete 4 investigations in the dairy, chicken and aquaculture industries, including the first-ever undercover expose of salmon aquaculture in the U.S.
Erin’s investigations and her advocacy work shed light on the interconnection of human and animal exploitation that occurs on farms in the animal agriculture system. She will share personal accounts from her compelling investigations to illustrate the dangers speciesism poses to all sentient beings on the planet. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian and The New York Times.
7 Reasons to Live Vegan (That you may not have thought of!)
with Hope Bohanec, Compassionate Living
Hope Bohanec has been vegan for 35 years and active in animal protection and environmental activism for over 3 decades. She is the Executive Director of Compassionate Living, the host of the Hope for the Animals Podcast and the organizer of the Eugene VeganFest. Hope co-founded the Humane Hoax Project, the Ahimsa Living Project and has organized hundreds of online and in-person events including the Humane Hoax Online Conference, the Humane Hoax Chicken Webinar, and the Sonoma County VegFest.
Hope has also published two books on the subject of humanewashing and greenwashing: The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat? and The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs. Over the last three decades, she has worked for the national non-profits United Poultry Concerns and In Defense of Animals as well as contributed chapters to two anthologies.