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I began my career as a clinical dietitian at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where I managed the nutrition care of patients with a wide variety of medical conditions, as well as conducting research managing advanced gastric surgery. Prior to joining the full time faculty at the University of New Haven, I directed the clinical dietetics staff of over 35 registered dietitians and dietetic technicians at the Hospital of Saint Raphael here in New Haven. My extensive career as a clinical dietitian and dietetics manager strengthened my preparation for my role as a dietetics educator.

I am proud of the Dietetic Internship Program that I developed several years ago. The Dietetic Internship Program offers supervised practice with a community nutrition focus. Graduates are eligible to take the national registration exam enabling them to become credentialed, registered dietitian nutritionists (RD or RDN), the only nationally recognized nutrition credential. My strong network of outstanding dietetics colleagues serve as excellent preceptors for our dietetic interns who rotate throughout the region in all areas of dietetics practice including acute and long term care, retail and institutional food service, school lunch and a wide variety of community nutrition locations such as senior centers, grocery stores, fitness centers, Connecticut Department of Public Health, local farms, residential eating disorder treatment centers, private practice dietitians and, most recently, the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program.

The Dietetic Internship Program attracts qualified applicants from across the country due to the variety of rotations offered, excellent guest speakers and outstanding, experienced preceptors anxious to train future dietitians. The first and second class of dietetic interns have all passed the national, registration exam within six months of graduation and are employed in medical centers, long term care facilities, eating disorder treatment programs, fitness centers or private practice settings. The Dietetic Internship Program underwent a successful Site Visit in 2019 and is now fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND).

I received early training in ground breaking sustainable agriculture initiatives well before those topics were even considered to be important in the field of nutrition, so this area of practice is of special interest to me. My former research interests focused upon healthy food preparation skills of young adults and teenagers. These interests are clearly interwoven into the curriculum for our Dietetic Internship Program which offers a variety of rotations in these areas.

I lead an active life and especially enjoy teaching sports nutrition for non-nutrition and nutrition majors. I am especially skilled with guiding students to use advanced nutrition analysis software which is well funded here on campus. Other undergraduate courses include Food Science, Dietetics Management and Healthy Food Preparation. I prepared a custom Food Science laboratory manual which is used during hands on food laboratory experiments. I also continue to teach both the Dietetics Management and Healthy Food Preparation courses which were ground breaking courses that continue to be updated to offer the most current nutrition practice.

I am an active member of the Board of the Connecticut Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, including elected roles as Member at Large and two terms as Chair of the Nominating Committee. I currently serve as Co-Chair of the Dietetics Educators Committee, a position I have served for over three terms. I was recently recognized with an Outstanding Advising Award by the University of New Haven and as an Outstanding Dietetics Educator by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND) of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

I am most proud of all the alums I have trained who are now working as dietetics leaders and managers throughout the region. I maintain an ongoing alumni listserv and serve as an ongoing mentor for undergraduates, dietetic interns and successful registered dietitians. Feel free to reach out to me if I can offer whatever assistance you need to guide your career as a nutrition professional, as I’m sure you will find this to be a most rewarding field of study with numerous and growing career options every year!

Research and Interest

My research and interest areas include partnering with pediatricians to improve treatment of childhood obesity, healthy food preparation skills for adolescents and young adults; sports nutrition; outdoor winter recreation for fitness; legislative issues related to school food environment; promoting local sustainable and organic agriculture.