Seed People

Meet the folks, present and past, who have made Utopian Seed Project what it is!

The Team

CHRIS SMITH

Executive Director, Founder
Chris Smith began his American life working for the Asheville-based seed company, Sow True Seed, and later founded Utopian Seed Project. His book, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020, and he is the co-host of The Okra Pod Cast. In 2023 Chris received the Organic Educator Award from The Organic Growers School and was named a Champion of Conservation by Garden & Gun. Chris is a Grow Apalachia 2025 Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellow.
Chris guides the organization and enjoys supporting the farm and food programming of Utopian Seed Project. Chris also brings his passion for research, reading, and writing to the project.
LEEZA CHEN

Farm and Seed Manager
Leeza is a farmer and artist originally from Raleigh, NC. She is inspired by the way seeds intersect tangible practicality and creative meaning making. Leeza loves using traditional breeding strategies to make crosses and see what comes of them.
When not farming Leeza is interested in storytelling and textile arts. Leeza manages the farm, is a founding member of the Appalachian Growers Seed Collective, and helps with event programming.
TERRI TERRELL

Culinary Director
Terri Terrell is the Culinary Director of the Utopian Seed Project, where she leads with a deep commitment to food sovereignty, crop diversity, and community resilience. With over 35 years of experience exploring the cultural and community-rooted dynamics of food and farming in the American South, her work is grounded in a lifelong engagement with regional foodways and shaped by decades in the restaurant industry.
Terri guides the organization’s culinary programming, building connections between agricultural research and community education through food. She oversees Trial to Table, a program that highlights the relationship between seed, farmer, and chef through community events, shared meals, and storytelling, and leads the Leicester Food Coalition, a grassroots initiative that works toward rural food sovereignty through farmer collaboration, food access, and education.
LUANNA NESBITT

Crop Stories and Trials Manager
Raised on a small dairy farm in Fairview, NC, LuAnna has always called Appalachia home. Her passion for sustainable food systems began at Appalachian State University, where she earned a degree in Sustainable Development in 2020. While in Boone, she was an active member of the community, farming and organizing with ClimAct, a local climate justice organization, and serving as a board member for the town’s Sustainability Committee. LuAnna also taught courses on climate change at Appalachian and served as a founding board member of BAD composting cooperative.
LuAnna left Boone to pursue a Master’s of Science in Food Systems at the University of Vermont, focusing on regional seed systems, agroecology, oral history, and storytelling. After graduating, LuAnna worked for the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project. She is thrilled to be back in the South, bringing her expertise to USP to help build a more diversified, seed-centered food system.

Our Board

Yanna Fishman

Founding Board Member, President
A legendary seed saver and sweet potato grower, Yanna has an insatiable curiosity for growing and researching new crops and encouraging others to do the same. Yanna is a true inspiration and we are honored to have her contribute her skills and wisdom to The Utopian Seed Project.
Jamie Swofford

Founding Board Member, Treasurer
As The Chef’s Farmer, Jamie is a former chef turned farmer focused on growing the best tasting food possible and sharing it widely and with great generosity. His skills in the kitchen and the field make Jamie an incredible asset for The Utopian Seed Project, bringing a market and chef perspective to our work.
Jacob Rutz

Board Member, Secretary
Jacob is a deep admirer of farmers, seed stewards and the community members that tend the hearth of agrobiodiversity. Currently employed at Elon University, Jacob spends most of his working day teaching students in the NC Piedmont region agricultural sciences and critical perspectives on the food system. He has helped steward an heirloom collard at the Elon U student farm for 5+ years and coordinates other forms of land stewardship such as a student-led ecovillage, Utopian Seed research projects and rapturous farm potlucks.
Shelby Mandonado

Board Member, AGSC Leadership Team
Shelby Mandonado is a farmer and farmer organizer with a passion for deeply collaborative models of community engagement based around our shared love of the land. With deep family roots in Atlanta, Georgia and Asheville, North Carolina, Shelby is dedicated to uplifting and preserving the unique culture of the South. Currently stewarding Water's Edge Farmstead, Shelby dedicates her land stewardship to honoring the sacred webs that hold all of us – whether we be human, fungi, plant, insect, animal, or otherwise – together.
Luis Martinez

Board Member
Luis Martinez was born in Santa Catarina Loxicha, Oaxaca, in a small Zapotec pueblo. He came to the US in 2005. Upon arriving in the US, he worked as a farmworker in Indio, California. After returning to the restaurant industry, Luis worked in several restaurants and cuisines alongside other Oaxacans in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle. These chefs taught Luis how to infuse Oaxacan culture and cuisine into his cooking using various methodologies, from traditional ingredients to Asian techniques. Now based in Asheville, NC, Luis combines his love for cooking with his passion for social justice.
Jay Bost

Board Member
Jay farms at Laughing Springs Farm with his family outside of Boone, NC where they focus on maize, medicinal herbs, seed crops and variety trials as perennial tree crops mature. He has a special fondness for Mesomerican domesticates (like beans, squash, amaranth, peppers, and tomatoes) and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Jay teaches intermittently at Appalachian State University and works with The Culinary Breeding Network. Having farmed for 10 years in Hawai'i and spent years in the Caribbean and Latin America, he tries to bridge the crop diversity and genetic pools of these places with those of his now home, Appalachia.

SEED MENTORSHIP

We are deeply grateful for the annual sponsorship from SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SEED EXCHANGE to support a summer seed mentorship position with Utopian Seed Project. The mentorship provides a stipend, and we work with the mentees to gain a broad experience with seed and farming, but also to explore their own research project.

Jordan Collins, okra research assistant with Utopian Seed Project

Leeza Chen - seed assistant for Utopian Seed Project

Yazmin McZorn-Hines - Utopian Seed Project intern

Yazmin McZorn-Hines
2025 Seed Mentorship, College Intern

Yazmin joined us for a summer internship as a student of Warren Wilson College. Yazmin is completing her capstone with a focus on okra and helped out in all aspects of Utopian Seed Proect.

Chris Keeve
2024 Seed Mentorship, Collard Atlas

Chris spent the summer working on a state-wide project called Collard Atlas. We worked to grow and share NC-stewarded collard varieties and develop an NC Collard Ultracross. The collaboration is ongoing and dynamic!

Shelby Mandonado
2023 Seed Mentorship, Sorghum

Shelby was developing a deep love and appreciation for sorghum, and so we worked with her to run a large observational trial with lots of different varieties. Shelby is a founding member of the Appalachian Growers Seed Collective and a USP board member.

Tarinii
2023 Seed Mentorship, African Diasporic Crops

Tarinii has farmed and saved seeds within Western NC for some time, but wanted to take a deeper dive into working with crops of the African Diaspora. As well as working with the seeds, Tarinii worked on research papers for some key crops.

Leeza Chen
2022 Seed Mentorship, All Seeds!

Leeza was looking to immerse herself in the world of seeds and joined us for the beginning of the season before heading to OSA for an internship and then coming back for seed cleaning in the fall. Leeza is now a core member of our team!

Jordan Collins
2021 Seed Mentorship, Okra

Jordan joined us for the summer with a strong focus on okra. We planted a large variety trial with many closely related species and began an okra seed oil breeding project. Jordan continues to work with okra and okra seed oil as a researcher and entrepreneur.