Staff

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

As Program Director, Nicole Lynch is the point of contact for Chef in the Garden (CITG). She sends reminders, answers program questions, coordinates the team and works to ensure that your student experience works for you!

SCHOOL GARDEN CONSULTANT

Lou Rodarte (a.k.a. Mr. Pikle) is a School Garden Consultant for Blue Watermelon Project and is with the founding school and school garden hub for the Chef in the Garden. Lou has over 14 years of experience in school gardens and supports partner schools as an advisor via site visits and technical assistance via Slack.

CULINARY CONSULTANT

Sasha Raj, as a Culinary Consultant, works with our guest chefs each month, assists with in-person Chef in the Garden visits, oversees monthly kit packing events, and audits per kit costs to ensure we do not exceed budget or overuse materials.

PROJECT MANAGER

Jilliann Sundberg is a Project Manager for Blue Watermelon, with a decade of experience in classrooms and farm-to-school concepts. As a bilingual educator, she saw how connection to the outdoors positively impacts students and contributes to a healthy environment. She migrated to the cafeteria to join the movement of professionals who are reimagining school food, serving up change one garden tomato at a time!

CONTEST COORDINATOR - FEEDING THE FUTURE

Sarah Martinelli is a registered dietitian who started her career working in school kitchens. Sarah now teaches in the nutrition program in the College of Health Solutions at ASU where her work focuses on school nutrition programs. As the contest coordinator for Feeding the Future, Sarah works students and chef mentors to ensure their recipes meet USDA guidelines. Sarah also contributes to the development of the Chef in the Garden curriculum.

VIDEOGRAPHER

Chuck Emmert is the videographer for the Blue Watermelon Project’s Chef in the Garden series. For more than 45 years, Chuck Emmert has been a visual storyteller in the Phoenix area. At KPNX, the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, Chuck led a talented group of video journalists that prided itself on fair and accurate storytelling with a flair for using video and sound to tell the story, garnering 8 Emmy® Awards in the process. Emmert has been the videographer on overseas documentary projects including segments in hostile areas like North Korea. He is credited with pioneering helicopter news coverage in one of the country’s first live airborne camera platforms with legendary pilot Jerry Foster of SKY-12 at KPNX. Then, in partnership with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, he directed a yearly thirteen-episode television series. ‘Arizona Wildlife Views’ that aired on PBS. The series chronicled the diverse native animal life in the desert southwest. Emmert continued to implement this storytelling-driven programming philosophy at know99 Television in Phoenix, a youth and education orientated cable channel. This opportunity offered the chance to create a video journalist mentoring program, crafting an advanced videography training curriculum for gifted high school and college student video journalists. Chuck is in the classroom as well, having served as adjunct professor in videography with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication. Check has transitioned to a new era of storytelling, serving as a videographer for the nation’s fifth-largest city, Phoenix. He is the principal content creator for the city’s Instagram account, attracting more than 100,000 followers in the process.