Meet the sos 2016 breakout presenters
Southern Obesity Summit 2016 – Breakout Session Bios
Steve Amos
Steve is a social entrepreneur with 30+ years experience in marketing, advertising, education, health and technology applications. He is the executive director and founder of HealthCode, established in 2009, a non-profit implementing the Million Mile Month, Marathon in a Month, Green Ribbon Schools and Healthivores programs. The programs are in use in all 50 states and 36 countries.
In 1999, he started 4empowerment, an online social networking and publishing platform for use within the education community. He conceived over $6.0 million in education grants, resulting in award-winning education technology programs.
Previously Steve was vice president of interactive marketing and account director for GSD&M (Omnicon) advertising agency, advertising account management with Lintas:New York and held international marketing positions with Textron. He has managed annual budgets exceeding $70 million. He has a M.B.A. from Wake Forest University and a BA from Florida State University.
Steve was included as a "Shapers of the Future" in 2002 by "Converge", an educational technology publication, serves on the conference advisory teams for SXSW Interactive, Edu and V2V. He’s an avid scuba diver and a founding member of the Future Forum.
Kayla Anderson
Kayla has been in the field of nutrition since 2006. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Pennsylvania State University and went on to earn her Master of Public Health and Nutrition degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her experience within nutrition has been multifaceted and includes community, clinical, and corporate nutrition and even includes experience at the FDA. As Director of Nutrition Services at Open Hand Atlanta, Kayla uses her experience within nutrition and public health to provide nutrition education, medical nutrition therapy, and assist in implementing and evaluating grant funded initiatives.
Shannon Barrett-Williams
Dr. Shannon Barrett-Williams is the Director of Special Projects at HealthMPowers. She has conducted research on youth physical activity and fitness for the last decade. She has experience teaching in public schools (K-12) as well as at the University level. In addition to research, she is also involved with writing grants.
Katrina Betancourt
Katrina Betancourt is the President and Chair for the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention (ArCOP). She has earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Kinesiological Science and is currently working on her Doctorate in Health Education with an emphasis in Health Program Planning and Health Policy. She is a Certified Public and Government Manager and currently works with over fifty Growing Healthy Communities (GHC) across the state. Her mission is to increase access to healthy and affordable foods and physical activity through policy, environment, and system changes while increasing the economic value of communities. Katrina is a proud mother of two teenage boys.
Brandy Bowlen
As Presenter/Author, Brandy was nominated as a 2016 Top 10 Nurse in the Houston Chronicle's Salute to Nurses and has 6 years experience as a school nurse and started her wellness programming in year two. She recognized that beginning with grade 2, student BMIs began to increase. She was a successful grant writer for the National Association of School Nurses SCOPE grant. Using those funds she designed Trim Epps Island, Pre-school parent engagement program, providing education on nutrition and exercise. The goal was primary prevention; to establish healthy eating habits early to ward off obesity. These efforts have continued over the years. She has successfully applied for 7 grants totally over $50,000 – NASN, CVS Health Care and the Oliver Foundation, and Klein Education Foundation. She has organized Epps Island Community Day, a community wide wellness day, for the past 5 years. This year we had over 500 attendees. She has collaborated with numerous community partners to bring quality programming to our school community. She has helped grow a staff competitive running group that serves as role models to students.
Gina Brandenburg
Gina Brandenburg has been a Tanner employee for 20 years in a variety of positions related to community health. Gina currently serves as program manager for the hospital’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiatives. She is a Master trainer for Cooking Matters and the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-management Program, a certified Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Coach, a certified Kids N Fitness instructor and is a lay leader for “Living Well with Chronic Disease” and “Living Well with Diabetes” workshops.
In addition, Gina is currently teaching part time in the Health and Community Wellness department at the University of West Georgia. Gina is a certified health education specialist (CHES) and has a master’s degree in health education from California State University at Long Beach and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Irvine. She has worked in the wellness field for more than 30 years, coming to Tanner from California where she developed and implemented comprehensive wellness programs for several corporations.
Anna Brewster
Anna Brewster, M.S., is a Program Director with the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She leads corporate, non-profit, and foundation funded projects for the Healthy Communities initiative. In this role, Anna manages projects focused on cancer prevention and control in community care settings to amplify cancer screening and early detection efforts as well as improving diet, physical activity, sun safety, and tobacco prevention. Anna is also engaged with strategic planning for the Platform and collaborates with MD Anderson’s Institutional Advancement function and faculty seeking extramural grant support for programs aligned with the Platform.
Prior to her current role, Anna worked at Deloitte Consulting. She started at the firm as a strategy and operations consultant in Deloitte's Federal Practice conducting regulatory policy analysis and advising federal government clients. After two years in consulting, Anna transferred to Deloitte's Center for Health Solutions, the health services think tank within the firm that informs stakeholders in the health care system about emerging trends using rigorous research.
Anna has a M.S. in the Social and Behavioral Sciences from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her master’s practicum with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation supporting a healthy community initiative in south Austin and a field study in India focused on non-communicable disease prevention and control. She has a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University.
Cati Brown-Johnson
Cati Brown-Johnson, PhD is an expert in behavior change communication, linguistic analysis, and tobacco control. With Postdoctoral appointments at UCSF and Stanford, she led multiple studies, investigating tobacco industry marketing to low income women (to inform counter-tobacco marketing), validating psychometric scales of tobacco-related stigma, managing an RCT, and developing online interactive medical education on stigma and e-cigarettes. With Oklahoma's TSET, Dr. Brown-Johnson has collaborated on development and evaluation of large-scale public health media campaigns, and leads their communication department in research and scholarly publishing.
Kathryn Burklund
Kathryn Burklund obtained her degree in Community Health Education, with a focus in nutrition, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has over 15 years experience in managing health projects and grants ranging from nutrition education, teaching kitchens, youth gardens, physical activity, recreation, developmental disabilities and environmental concerns. Most recently, Kathryn has had the privilege to manage the CDC funded program at the University of Tennessee Extension, focused on obesity reduction through PSE changes that increase access to produce and physical activity.
Karen Burnell
Karen Burnell is currently the Healthy Lifestyle Liaison for the Texas PTA where she helps ensure healthy opportunities are presented and available to PTA’s across the state. She supports these efforts through various forms of outreach to local and council level Healthy Lifestyle Chairs. Prior to this role, she was the Coordinated School Health Specialist for Dallas ISD where she oversaw district implementation and campus initiatives that ensured compliance with local, state, and national coordinated school health mandates. She additionally co-facilitated the district’s School Health Advisory Council and served on the Dallas Area Coalition To Prevent Childhood Obesity. Before her time with Dallas ISD, Karen was the National Training Director for the CATCH (Coordinated Approach To Child Health) Program and Project Director for a childhood obesity-prevention grant at the University of Texas-Houston, Health Science Center.
Karen’s passion for coordinated school health started with her career in elementary physical education where she enjoyed teaching young minds the importance of health and wellness. She has been recognized for her efforts by receiving the CATCH State Champion Award and CATCH Living Legacy Award, as well as the Department of State Health Services Reaching for Excellence and Discovery Award on behalf of Dallas ISD. She has a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology with a specialization in Health Education and a Master of Education in Education Administration. As a parent, Karen continues to teach healthy habits to her children and is working with her local preschool program to improve snacks and other healthy initiatives.
Katie Chennisi
Katie Chennisi, MPH, is a Public Health Analyst with Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services. Katie coordinates the Healthy Living Matters-Pasadena initiative, aimed at curbing childhood obesity in Pasadena, TX through policy and environmental changes. Katie also oversees the Early Care and Education (ECE) activities of the broader Healthy Living Matters collaborative. Katie previously served as the Coordinator for the Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System for five years. Katie also has over six years of experience in the social services field. Katie obtained her Masters of Public Health from The University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, TX and her Bachelor’s in Organizational Psychology from the Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Kimberly Clay
Dr. Kimberly Clay is the Founder and Executive Director of Play Like a Girl, a Nashville-based non-profit organization working to improve the health and well-being of girls in the U.S. through sport, physical activity and active play. Through after-school clubs and its popular Pop-Up Play Day, Play Like a Girl is leading the movement to educate, empower and equip girls to become active early and stay active for life. Mentoring-style sessions prepare girls, ages 10 to 13, by combining health education and esteem-building exercises with movement of all kinds.
Started in 2004 and backed by giants like ESPNW and Toyota, the organization has helped place more than 10,000 girls and young women across 11 states in programs where they learn healthy habits, discover a love for sport, and develop the confidence to pursue their passions. In January 2017, Play Like a Girl will launch a search for a national Board of Directors which will focus on engaging women athletes, coaches and executives in the sports industry in its 21st century mission.
Dr. Kim began her career as a social worker and public health analyst at the Tulane Xavier National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. In 2004, she surged onto the research scene as a National Institutes of Health Cancer Prevention and Control Fellow at the Minority Health Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her work, Dr. Kim visited local communities and witnessed the gender gap in physical activity and health-related outcomes firsthand, which led her to start Play Like a Girl.
Dr. Kim has also served as Public Health Advisor for the Centers Disease Control and Prevention and was a tenure-track professor at the University of Georgia until she took a sabbatical to lead Play Like a Girl as its first full-time non-compensated employee in 2010. During her tenure as a professor, Dr. Kim was responsible for developing the Master of Social Work/Master Public Health dual degree program. She has also trained and mentored others – both personally and professionally – and encouraged them to advance women’s and girl’s health through their own initiatives. Today, her mentees represent a cross-section of health and medical professionals who are making a difference in the lives of women and girls around the world.
Dr. Kim is the author of numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles exploring the relationship between cancer survivorship and spirituality. Her work has been cited in scholarly publications such as Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work, Health Education Research, and Cancer Control. She is a graduate (BA) of Xavier University of Louisiana, Tulane University’s Schools of Social Work (MSW) and Public Health (MPH), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she received her PhD in Health Education/Promotion. She’s been named one of Toyota’s Everyday Heroes, Xavier University’s 40 Under 40, and one of 50 People on the Move by the Nashville Business Journal.
Dr. Kim lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Mark Clay, MD, their sons, Joshua and Isaac, and their beagle, Brooklyn.
Amy DeLisio
Amy DeLisio is currently the Deputy Director at the Public Health Institute Center for Wellness and Nutrition with over ten years of experience working on nutrition and obesity prevention programs serving vulnerable populations. Ms. DeLisio’s work includes a broad variety of initiatives that reach low resource populations through federal, state and privately-funded interventions. Major focus areas of the Center include healthy retail initiatives, worksite wellness interventions, policy, system and environmental change strategies and partnership engagement and development. Amy is passionate about building the evidence base through effective educational, environmental and policy strategies that increase access to healthy food and safe spaces that advance health equity in low resource communities. Ms. DeLisio is a registered dietitian with a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Leslie Denner
Leslie Denner is a Marketing Strategist at VI Marketing and Branding in Oklahoma City. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Oklahoma City University with a minor in Spanish. She currently serves as a board member for Ad2OKC, an organization for young professionals in the communications industry. Leslie enjoys playing soccer, being outdoors and jumping in on voice talent projects for VI and Shape Your Future.
Diane M. Dowdy
Diane M. Dowdy, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor in the Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences Department at the Texas A&M School of Public Health and Co-Chair of the Live Smart Texas Coalition. She has a long history of leadership in development and implementation of programs at multiple levels, including community, state, and national activities. Previously, as deputy director of the Active for Life National Program Office and as program director of the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation project (both funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), she has worked to create highly-functional multidisciplinary teams, balancing critical programmatic needs while remaining responsive to the needs of project partners and the demands of their individual organizations/systems.
Prior to these responsibilities, Dr. Dowdy had extensive experience in the healthcare/community education fields as director of health promotion and health education services. Involved in health promotion programs, worksite wellness, and patient and community health education programs, Dr. Dowdy planned, implemented, and evaluated both disease management and healthy lifestyle programs in a variety of formats, allowing both individualization of approach and multiple access points.
Ryan Eason
Community Relations Manager, HCA North Texas. Ryan graduated from the University of Texas, Arlington with a BS in Exercise Science. He worked as an exercise physiologist in Cardiac Rehab before developing programs for the community.
• In 2006, the Restaurant Partner Program.
• In 2007, the Physician Speaking Program
• In 2010, School Nurse Program
• In 2010, the kids teaching kids program
• In 2013, Kids Fit Menu
His passion is to work on community health programs that make an impact Awards and Recognition.
In 2015, the kids teaching kids program received two Congressional Records from U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson (R) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D). Also, in 2015 the program received the Excellence in Community Service Award from the Texas Hospital Association.
Current and past community involvement includes:
2013-2016: Board Member, Texas Restaurant Association Education Foundation
2007-2016: Board Member, Greater Dallas Restaurant Association.
2008-2010: President, Dallas Farmers Market Friends.
Ryan was born, raised, and still lives in Dallas, Texas. He loves to network and learns by doing. Blessed with a beautiful, loving, and supportive wife, Joanne, and has two well-behaved kids Tristin (12) & Sean (9).
Alexis Etow
Alexis is a Staff Attorney at ChangeLab Solutions where she focuses on legal and policy issues related to creating healthy school environments. Prior to joining ChangeLab, she was a legal fellow in the California Attorney General’s Office, working on the Tobacco Litigation and Enforcement team. Alexis graduated from Princeton University and received her law degree from the Washington College of Law at American University.
Jenny Eyer
Jenny Eyer graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry from Abilene Christian University in 2008, and earned her MPH with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in 2012. Prior to CHILDREN AT RISK, Jenny worked as a research assistant for the University of Texas School of Public Health at the Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living to promote child health in the North Texas area. As the Senior Policy Analyst and Manager of the Center for Child Health, Research and Policy for CHILDREN AT RISK, she focuses her time on increasing access to healthy foods for children across the state, both during school hours with the Food in Schools Initiative, and after the school day ends, with the Healthy Food Retail Initiative.
Danielle Fastring
Danielle Fastring is an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. While there, she was a fellow in the Maternal Child Health Epidemiology Doctoral Training Program sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Her research interests center around health disparities present in rates for infant mortality, childhood obesity, and HIV in women. She serves on the board of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Youth Health Coalition and is a regular consultant and evaluator for their Childhood Obesity Initiative.
Lindsey Funk
Lindsey Funk has been working in social marketing since 2008. She attended Oklahoma State University and received her Bachelor’s degree in Advertising. She has been working at VI Marketing and Branding on the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust account for 8 years. She has held several positions within the Oklahoma City American Marketing Association and is the immediate past president. She resides in Oklahoma City and spends her time outside of work chasing around her 1-year-old daughter.
Marcita Galindez
Marcita Galindez has been active as both a public health professional and community volunteer for over 13 years. For the past six years she has been employed by MD Anderson Cancer Center, most recently serving as co-chair of its Energy Balance community workgroup and facilitator of its Tobacco community workgroup. Marcita holds a bachelor’s degree in education and biology from Denison University and a master’s in public health administration from the Maxine Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University in Ohio.
In addition to her professional endeavors to promote energy balance, Marcita continues to work on the EBT at the Farmers Market Group for the Houston Food Policy Workgroup. She also promotes the use of the Health Congregations Toolkit -a guide to healthy living for faith-based organizations.
Marcita believes that every family deserves to live in a safe environment, and have access to healthy foods and healthcare. She envisions a healthy Houston to be a place where food swamps and deserts no longer exist and where families can engage in physical activity in their own neighborhoods without fearing for their safety. Moreover, Marcita believes in ubiquitous access to preventative care for all Houstonians regardless of their socioeconomic Status.
Julie Gardner
Julie Gardner, M.Ed., CHES, is an Extension Program Specialist for Community Health with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Currently she serves the Central Texas area and works within the agency and community to design and implement relevant health education programs to improve health behaviors and reduce the risk of chronic disease. Mrs. Gardner serves as the project director for a Central Texas 1115 Medicaid Transformation Waiver Regional project in partnership with Coryell Memorial Healthcare System in Gatesville, Texas. This project targets disease prevention and health promotion in youth and adults and serves the counties of Bosque, Coryell, Falls, Hamilton, Hill, Limestone, and McLennan. She supervises six health educators who have reached over 3,000 individuals in schools and communities through the 1115 regional project. Julie also provides leadership to other Texas A&M AgriLife programs including worksite wellness initiatives; food, health, and agriculture initiatives; and the Dinner Tonight healthy cooking program. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in Health Studies with an emphasis on Population Health at Texas Woman’s University.
Kristina Giard-Bradford
Kristina Giard-Bradford received her Masters of Art in Education in Health, Physical Education and Recreation from Tennessee State University and is currently working at the Tennessee Department of Health as a Program Director with the Centers of Disease Control “1305” grant, addressing Nutrition, Physical Activity, Obesity and School Health. Her professional interest focuses on helping Tennessee become a healthier state overall, and she realizes the importance of balancing policy, systems and environmental work with programming. She tries to “walk the talk” herself incorporating wellness breaks, lunch walk breaks and other physical activity into her daily life. In addition, she volunteers to lead office yoga and Laughter Yoga with her colleagues and volunteers to teach a gentle yoga class at her local library. She wishes her knees still liked running, but is grateful that her childhood experience with youth running programs, in both middle and high school, helped pave a strong foundation for lifelong wellness.
Ellie Gladstone
Ellie Gladstone is a senior staff attorney at ChangeLab Solutions, where she works on creating policy-based strategies to increase opportunities for healthy eating and active living. Much of Ellie’s work focuses on shared use, sugary drink regulation, and engaging faith-based organizations in community health and wellness efforts. She regularly provides training and technical assistance to state and local governments, community-based organizations, and public health advocates. Prior to joining ChangeLab Solutions, she worked as a real estate litigation attorney with a private law firm, Miller Starr Regalia. Before becoming an attorney, Ellie worked as an epidemiologist, focusing on child health and development. Ellie graduated from the University of Texas, Austin, and holds a JD from UC Davis and an MPH (epidemiology & biostatistics) from UC Berkeley.
Deanna M Hoelscher
Deanna M Hoelscher, PhD, RD, LD, CNS is the John P McGovern Professor in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living, and Associate Regional Dean for Research at The University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus. Her research interests include child and adolescent nutrition, school-based health promotion programs, dietary assessment methodology, evaluation of child obesity policies, linkages between primary care and public health, and dissemination of school health programs.
She is current principal investigator of the Texas Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (TX CORD) Project funded by the CDC and the School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) survey funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services. She has been the principal investigator on many other NIH, RWJF, and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation grants, including the Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH), Lunch is in the Bag, and the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation study.
Dr. Hoelscher was President of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) and is currently a Fellow. She was a reviewer on the Institute of Medicine consensus reports on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States (2010), School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children (2010), and Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way toward Healthier Youth (2007). Dr. Hoelscher was also a member of the IOM committee on Evaluating Progress of Obesity Prevention Efforts.
Jamie Jeffrey
Dr. Jeffrey is a pediatrician and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at WVU School of Medicine-Charleston Division. She is also the Medical Director of HealthyKids Wellness and Weight Management Program at CAMC. She received her medical degree from Marshall University School of Medicine and completed a pediatric residency at Akron Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio. She is very blessed with a wonderful husband and four fantastic children, ages 10, 16, 20 and 22.
After noticing escalating weight and BMI in her patients, she has devoted her career to pediatric clinical, research, advocacy and community outreach in the field of childhood obesity. She was the founder of HealthyKids, which is a multidisciplinary, family based treatment program that includes a dietician, psychologist and exercise physiologist, to offer additional support to motivated families.
As project director of KEYS 4 HealthyKids, obesity prevention collaborative, she hopes to not only reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, but focus on policies and the built environment to enable more permanent change. This will hopefully provide the landscape where healthy options are more readily available and the EASY choice once again. She serves as the Team Leader for the Childcare Policy Team for KEYS 4 HealthyKids to shift efforts to our youngest generation of children for a healthy start.
Gregory D. Johnston
Dr. Gregory D. Johnston is the associate director of the Covenant BodyMind Initiative. Dr. Johnston writes and presents extensively on comprehensive wellness issues, specifically in an adolescent student population. His research interests include wellness development in adolescents and emerging adults, as well as a holistic approach to reducing childhood obesity. He proudly co-wrote the first two Texas Education Agency approved wellness courses. Prior to working at Texas Tech University, Dr. Johnston served as a legislative assistant for a Member of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Kelsey Keel
Kelsey Keel, MPH, is Director of the Childhood Obesity Initiative for the MS Gulf Coast Youth Health Coalition, a Fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, a local nonprofit organization. Their primary program, Let’s Go! Gulf Coast, encourages healthy eating and active living for MS Gulf Coast children, their families, and the communities in which they live, learn, work, and play! This adaptation of the nationally recognized childhood obesity program, Let's Go!, is designed to combat obesity on the MS Gulf Coast. Let's Go! Gulf Coast uses a multi-setting approach to reach youth and families based on the premise that if families are exposed to the same health promotion messages through several settings, and if those settings have policies and environments that support healthy choices, they will be more likely to adopt or maintain the behaviors in their daily lives. As Director, she facilitates relationships between Coalition partners, committee members, stakeholders, and community members and seeks partnerships with agencies, organizations, coalitions and community groups that work to address childhood obesity. Kelsey has extensive experience working to promote healthy lifestyle changes at the local level, and has worked with Head Start Centers, school districts, after school programs, early child care centers, community organizations, and local worksites.
Kelsey received her MPH from Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her passion is to promote and encourage healthy living in youth and families through the development and implementation of health promotion and education programs.
Debra Kibbe
Debra Kibbe is a Senior Research Associate in the Georgia Health Policy Center at Georgia State University where she has worked since October 2011 on obesity and health-related policy and programs throughout the United States. From 1998 to 2011, Debra served as Director of the Physical Activity and Nutrition (PAN) Program for the International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation (ILSI RF) headquartered in Washington, D.C. where she coordinated, evaluated and published results from several school, community and health care intervention projects aimed at the prevention and management of pediatric overweight. Prior to joining the PAN program, Debra was the assistant volleyball competition manager for the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Active at the national level, Debra is faculty for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetic’s certificate program on child and adolescent overweight and was a member of the education subcommittee of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Implementation Plan initiative. Debra co-chairs the data and evaluation sub-group of the Georgia SHAPE childhood obesity prevention initiative. She is an experienced presenter completing more than 100 presentations throughout the United States and 15 countries on topics ranging from school-based health interventions to social marketing to improving obesity management practice patterns among clinicians. Debra earned her B.S. in Psychology from Hiram College (Ohio), and her M.S. in Personnel & Employment Relations from Georgia State University.
Tiereny LloydAs the Director of Health and Wellness Initiatives, Tiereny directs a national, state and local level effort to advance health and wellness policy for children and youth in afterschool, summer learning, early care and education programs. Before joining the Afterschool Alliance in January 2016, Tiereny served as Senior Manager of Strategic Relationships at SHAPE America for Let’s Move! Active Schools. Previous to her work with Let’s Move! Active Schools, Tiereny managed an oral health campaign to reduce pediatric dental disease while at the National Children’s Oral Health Foundation. She also developed a national physical activity program for Head Start children while working at the National Head Start Association.
Although those roles afforded her a national perspective of child health and wellness’ standards and practice, it was through her previous roles as a local pre-school director and teacher that often grounds, influences, and provides practical meaning to her advocacy work. Tiereny is a graduate of George Washington University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in maternal and child health.
Michelle Lombardo
Dr. Lombardo is the President, co-owner and creator of The OrganWise Guys Inc. Currently she is Project Manager for Thriving Communities, Thriving Children, a $1.2 million, W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded project that has resulted in statistically significant health improvements for Head Start children. From 2009-2013, she was Project Manager for HOPE2, a $2 million, six state childhood obesity prevention project also funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Statistically significant results from a four year quasi-experimental study that used OWG as its health education curriculum are published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the American Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved.
Dr. Lombardo is the author of The OrganWise Guys series, which promotes the benefits of good nutrition and preventive healthcare practices through creative characters playing the roles of the vital body organs. The curriculum includes over 50 books as well as a wide variety interactive nutrition education tools. She is also the Creative Director on the all of the companion multi-media components She conducts dozens of “train the trainer” sessions on these materials each year nationwide in addition to a wide variety of professional speaking engagements. Dr. Lombardo received her D.C. from Life College of Chiropractic and was in private practice for 10 years prior to starting The OrganWise Guys Inc.
Anna Macnak
Anna Macnak is a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified diabetes educator working with the City of San Antonio Metropolitan Health District as the dietitian for the ¡Por Vida! program, a restaurant recognition program that helps adults and children identify the healthiest items on the menu. Anna graduated from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington in 2009 and completed her dietetic internship at Texas State University in San Marcos. She has 5 years of experience with working in the field of obesity prevention and treatment, first in the clinical setting as the lead dietitian for a bariatric surgery center and now as a dietitian in community health. Anna is passionate about helping people discover the healthy foods that they enjoy through cooking and tasting new foods and food preparations.
Laciana McIntyre
Laciana McIntyre, MS, a native of Brandon, Mississippi received her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and Master of Science in Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion from Mississippi State University. Ms. McIntyre currently serves as the Health and Wellness Coordinator for The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. There, she works to improve the public’s knowledge about health, with the overall goal of lowering the risk of obesity-related diseases. Ms. McIntyre creates and implements unique, youth programs designed to make eating healthy and living well interesting and fun. She also works closely with school health councils across the state, educating them on health application in the school setting and ways to improve overall student, faculty, and community health.
Eric Moreno
Eric Moreno is a Content Curator for the Salud America! program at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has a BA in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Masters in Communications from Gonzaga University. He specializes in health equity topics for Salud America!
Lauren Morris
Lauren Morris started working with the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extensions service in December of 2015 acting as Project Coordinator for a new obesity-prevention initiative named Arkansas Healthy LIFE (Lifestyles Involving Food and Exercise). Before joining the Cooperative Extension, Lauren worked with local school-based obesity-prevention programs for the City of Little Rock. Lauren started her career with Save the Children after receiving a Masters Degree in Public Health from Boston University working as a Nutrition and Physical Activity Specialists for afterschool programs across the South in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. She expanded her expertise to also include school-based literacy and early childhood programs, acting as state lead for these programs in low-income, rural communities across Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska. Lauren lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband Grant.
Andi Nelson
Andi Nelson currently serves as the Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education ProgramTM Coordinator at Recipe for Success Foundation. She has over two decades of experience as an educator, including in nutrition and wellness education. Her most recent work the last 5 years has been in education professional development and in-school programming design and implementation for NASA Science Mission Directorate Education. Ms. Nelson grew up eating what was grown on her farm, and supporting local farmers with what wasn't grown there. Her education background is in Immunology, Science Education and Child Development.
Sonia Noriega
Sonia Noriega is the Lead Teacher for Health and Physical Education for the Ysleta Independent School District (YISD) in El Paso, TX. Born and raised in El Paso, she graduated from YISD’s Del Valle High School and is a product of the district she currently works for. Sonia attended the University of Texas at El Paso where she received her Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology with a minor in education in 1998. That same year, she began her teaching career at Rio Bravo Middle School in YISD where she taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade health and physical education for three years. She also coached volleyball, track and soccer.
In 2001, Sonia transferred to Ascarate Elementary in YISD where she taught physical education for eight years. While there, the school participated in the district’s annual Physical Education Demonstration Day, an event that is entering its 33rd year this May. Her students also participated annually in the local Vista Hills Optimist Club Track Meet and, from 2002-2006, she coached the girls’ JV soccer team at Ysleta High School. In 2009, Sonia became the Lead Teacher for Health and Physical Education and is very proud to continue to be a part of the YISD family.
Emily O’Sullivan
Emily is passionate about helping individuals and organizations reach their fullest potential by focusing on holistic health. She has been working in the field of corporate health promotion for the past seven years and is currently the Program Manager for the South Carolina Hospital Association’s Working Well Initiative, a cross-sector strategy addressing healthy eating and active, tobacco-free living to establish cultures of wellness in worksites throughout South Carolina. Working Well has partnered with over 100 organizations in SC, including hospitals, public and private businesses, state agencies, municipalities, school districts, universities, and state agencies to create sustainable cultures of wellness using evidence-based best practices focused on policy, systems, and environmental change.
Prior to her work at SCHA, she was a Health Promotions Coordinator at BlueCross BlueShield of SC where she developed behavior change programs for BlueCross members and provided onsite wellness solutions for employer groups. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Health Promotion and Education from Clemson University and a Master’s degree in Health Promotion Management from Nebraska Methodist College. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist.
Eliza Paul
Eliza Paul has a professional and academic background in food security and nutrition for children under 5 years of age in international emergencies. She has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy with a specialization in Food Security and Public Nutrition Policy from Tufts University, and professional experience designing nutrition and health interventions for a number of government, nonprofit, and UN agencies in disaster situations. She has been the director of Rainbow In My Tummy since February 2016, and is enjoying applying her international experience to the early childhood sector back home in the US.
Maria Eugenia Perez
Dr. Maria Eugenia Perez leads the implementation of the MEND program in the Rio Grande Valley for the UTHealth School of Public Health Brownsville Regional Campus. The MEND program is a multi-national, evidence-based, family-based intervention program for children aged 6-13 years who are above a healthy weight. Dr. Perez has an EdD. Under her leadership the MEND program has already reached 1011 children since 2014. MEND is an important collaborative program included in the portfolio of programs led by Dr. Belinda Reininger to promote a culture of health in the Rio Grande Valley region. The programs in the region are designed to address the social determinants of health associated with chronic disease prevention and management and include 1) health education programs for individual adults and children, 2) health promotion programs to create healthy environments and policies, and 3) health communication programs to create mass media and social media messages supporting healthy lifestyles.
Mike Pomeroy
Mike serves as Senior Program Director of Brighter Bites, overseeing and directing programmatic aspects of Brighter Bites across all three cities, 65 sites, and programmatic staff, including program implementation and evaluation, community relations, and site and volunteer recruitment and engagement. He has been an integral part of the Brighter Bites roll out and development over the past three years in his work at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at the UT School of Public Health, where he worked closely with Brighter Bites Co-Founder Shreela Sharma, PhD. Mike has had an interest in improving food access and reducing food insecurity since he became a graduate student at the UT School of Public Health in Houston. He lobbied for improved national school lunch standards in 2010 as an intern with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and worked with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign in 2012. He has also served on Houston ISD’s School Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) for the past three years. Mike obtained his MPH in 2010 with an emphasis in health policy, and worked with the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living from 2008-2015 on multiple health promotion research projects, including the pilot project that launched Brighter Bites.
Andi Ridgway
Andi Ridgway is currently the Branch Chief for Hometown Health Improvement in the Center for Local Public Health at the Arkansas Department of Health. Andi is a registered dietitian by profession and also a Certified Diabetes Educator. Andi works with ADH colleagues and state partners to improve the health of Arkansas communities through Hometown Health Improvement. Andi is responsible for developing and maintaining state-level partnerships, coordinating staff training and program development at the state level, managing fiscal appropriations, and producing state and federal reports. Andi currently serves as the Past Chair and Secretary for the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention. Andi graduated from the University of Central Arkansas for her BS degree in Dietetics, and then attended Oklahoma State University for her Master’s Degree in Food, Nutrition, and Institution Administration. She has received the Certificate of Public Health Leadership and participated in the South Central Public Health Leadership Institute. Andi was recently awarded the 2016 Outstanding Achievement award and the 2016 Sue Parker award from the Arkansas Public Health Association.
Doraleena Sammons Hackett
Over 34 years of experience in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Program development and implementation including nutrition, cardiovascular disease prevention, cancer prevention and early detection, women’s health, rape and sexual assault, health education, physical activity, HIV and program integration.
• Over 10 years experience with WIC Program, including State WIC Director for the State of
Georgia.
• Over 30 years of management experience and physical resource management.
• Over 20 years of experience in Policy, Environment, and Systems (PES) Change.
• Over 30 years of management experience of large and small workforces.
• Over 30 years planning, organizing and directing the programmatic, federal and community
grant development, implementation and monitoring; and, fiscal activities.
• Extensive experience in the development of numerous categorical federal grants.
• Over 30 years experience in budget preparations, grants management, resource allocation and
monitoring.
• Expertise in the development of culturally sensitive community-based outreach and educational plays, videotapes, brochures, and training modules.
• Participation on several national, regional and statewide planning and advisory
councils/committees and expert scientific panels.
• Experienced in providing training and technical assistance. Policy, Environment and Systems
(PES) Change Director Directors of Health Promotion and Education (DHPE) – Washington, DC
(January 2011-Present)
• Markets and assures delivery of all health policy training, particularly Systems Change for Health (SCH) competency-based training course on health policy and environmental change; develops contracts for training with state and local health departments and their partners.
• Direct systems and functions associated with the implementation of Systems Change for Health.
• Experience developing licensing and certification Systems Change for Health (SCH) competency-based training course for CHES and MCHES credits.
• Responsible for Program Administration and Customer Relations (Pre- and Post- Training).
• Conducts quality assurance monitoring site visits.
• Assesses and provides technical assistance to state and local health departments.
• Works collaboratively with the Director of Health Equity and the Fellowship/Internship Manager on trainings for students, technical assistance and other areas.
• Staff to the Membership and Health Policy Subcommittees of the DHPE Board; serves on the
DHPE Annual member meeting Planning Committee.
• Facilitated the rebranding of Shaping Policy for Health™ to Systems Change for Health.
Scientific Reviewer for Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (2012-Present)
New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services – Trenton, New Jersey (1989-2009)
Director, Chronic Disease Prevention & Control Services (July 2004-October 2009)
Program Manager, Cancer and Reproductive Health Services (March 2000—June 2004)
Project Director, New Jersey Cancer Education and Early Detection Program (NJCEED) (July 1996-March 2000)
Shreela Sharma
Dr. Sharma is a trained dietitian and physical therapist. As a health professional, she strongly felt she was treating preventable diseases stemming from poor lifestyles: heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. She saw the repercussions were devastating the community. Her love for teaching, academics and the community led her to purse a PhD in public health, focusing on epidemiology. Her interest is in nutrition and physical activity-based interventions to address obesity via school, family, and the community, predominantly in low-income minority populations. She co-found Brighter Bites, a partner program of the Houston Food Bank, and serves on the Mayor of Houston’s Go Healthy Houston Task Force.
Katherine Shary
Katherine Shary is a registered dietitian with Strong4Life (S4L) where she coordinates the S4L WIC program grant. This includes training WIC nutrition providers in all 18 public health districts to implement patient centered counseling strategies and the use of our S4L tools with their clients – including pregnant and breastfeeding women as well as children birth to 5 years of age. She also coordinates the S4L book program, obesity prevention at the pediatricians office.
Before coming to Children’s, Katherine’s experiences ranged from consulting with Cleveland Clinics Lifestyle 180 Program to home health agencies. She helped implement an outpatient billing system for dietitians at Grady Health System and managed the outpatient nutrition program at four of Grady’s outpatient health clinics. Katherine is currently the reimbursement representative for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Bharti Shetye
Dr. Bharti Shetye earned her medical degree from the University of Mumbai. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training from programs affiliated with the University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and went on to be certified as a bariatrician with the American Board of Obesity Medicine. Her past work has included serving as the Chief Resident at the Good Samaritan Hospital, affiliated with John Hopkins University, Associate Medical Director of the hyperbaric medicine unit at Rope St. Francis Health System and as a primary care physician at St. James Santee Health Center. Currently, Dr. Shetye is the Medical Director of the Weight Management Clinic at the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County. She is passionate about teaching her clients how to live a holistic lifestyle, which is what she follows in her daily life. Her emphasis is on living in harmony with the “laws of nature” – nourishing one’s body with whole foods and exercising on a daily basis. Her Fruit and Vegetable Voucher Prescription program is built around this foundation, where she believes everyone should have easy access to fresh produce.
Sarah Sliwa
Sarah Sliwa, PhD is Health Scientist at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the Division of Population Health (DPH)’s School Health Branch (SHB). She has over a decade of experience working on initiatives to prevent childhood obesity in community, school, and out-of-school settings (OST). As part of the Research Application and Evaluation Team in the School Health Branch, Sarah leads work related to school-based OST programs as well as school-based obesity prevention strategies. Sarah earned a PhD in Food Policy from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Raj SolankiRaj is an 8th grader at the Gifted and Talented Academy at Quail Valley Middle School. His favorite hobby is basketball; he is a member of his middle school’s team. He also enjoys music a lot. He plays guitar for his middle school jazz and also plays percussion for his band. He actively volunteers around the community, looking to make a difference. He hopes to major in business and later on take his knowledge to law school.
Andrew E. Springer
Andrew E. Springer, DrPH is an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at the University of Texas School of Public Health(UTSPH)-Austin Regional Campus with over 15 years of experience in the design and implementation of youth-led community health and development programs and child and adolescent health promotion research in the U.S. and Latin America. In addition to active community health practice experience that includes service on nonprofit boards- as the co-chair of the Michael & Susan Dell Community Collaborative for Child Health and as a board member with the nonprofit Learn All The Time. He has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on research projects with funding from Robert Wood Johnson, CDC, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Colorado Health Foundation. This includes the evaluation of state-mandated legislation to promote physical activity in elementary and middle school children, reduction of sedentary behavior in Hispanic children living on the Texas-Mexico border, implementation and evaluation of the CATCH program in elementary and middle school students, and the design and evaluation of the Active Play – Active Learning project, an intervention study aimed at increasing children’s physical activity during the school day in Austin, Texas and Pueblo, Colorado. He currently serves as the Co-Principal Investigator of the ¡Actívate Ya! project, a National Institute of Health-funded study aimed at preventing tobacco use and promoting physical activity in Uruguayan secondary school students.
Jamila Taylor
As the Associate Director of the Mississippi State University Extension Service’s Early Years Network, Jamila Taylor oversees the technical assistance, training and family support programs. She obtained her Bachelor of Nursing degree from Howard University then went onto obtain a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. Taylor has received numerous early childhood credentials which include the Mississippi Directors Credential, CDA and Program Administration Scale (PAS) certifications. Taylor has always had a passion for working with young children and families not only in the healthcare setting, but also as an owner and director of an early childhood program in Starkville, MS. Taylor has used her early childhood, healthcare knowledge and business expertise to assist early care programs in the state of Mississippi in growing quality childcare programs.
Christina Thi
Christina Thi is obesity prevention coordinator for the Obesity Prevention Program in the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Section in the Department of State Health Services. Christina coordinates nutrition policy, systems, and environmental approaches for the program. Her current work focuses on the adoption of food service guidelines and nutrition standards in childcare, worksite, and community settings across the state. She has a Master of Public Health in Management, Policy and Community Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a doctoral student in Health Promotion at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Kathy Tucker
Kathy Tucker received a BBA in Marketing from Southern Methodist University. She is currently Director of HealthWorks! North Mississippi and is responsible for oversight of virtually all aspects of this interactive children’s health education center, including staffing, strategic planning, budgets and revenues, grant funded project management, and program outreach to the community. She oversees operation of the FIT (Families in Transformation) Program, a collaborative multi-department effort initiated at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, MS.
Mudita Upadhyaya
Mudita Upadhyaya is post doctoral fellow in the department of Epidemiology at University of Texas, School of Public Health, Houston. She is the recipient of multiple awards including Fulbright Masters Leadership Fellowship. She has extensive research and work experience in work-site wellness programs to prevent obesity among healthcare employees. Currently she is working on the 'TMC Overweight and Obesity Prevention project'. In this role she serves as the liaison between work-sites and the evaluation teams, and is the student lead for monitoring and evaluation. This project is focused on reducing obesity rates, and encourage healthy food choices among employees.
Jenny Varghese
Jenny Varghese, MPH, CHES, joined Harris Country Public Health & Environmental Services (HCPHES) as a Health Education Program Specialist in June 2013. Healthy Dining Matters (HDM) is one health education program Jenny leads at HCPHES. Along with HDM, Jenny works on other health education programs with topics such as food safety, child health, cross cultural communications, community empowerment, and various health policy related initiatives. Before coming to HCPHES, Jenny worked for the Texas Obesity Research Center on the Program Evaluation Team, for CDC’s national multisite Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration Project. Jenny has over 6 years of experience in program evaluation and management, health education and research. Jenny received both her masters and undergraduate degree from Baylor University in Waco, TX. Currently, she is a Doctoral Candidate in the Management, Policy and Community Health Division at the University Of Texas Health Science Center, School of Public Health located in the Houston Medical Center. In her free time, she works on her child health policy dissertation, runs, and leads a backyard Bible study during the week.
Kara Viggiano
Kara Viggiano, BS, MPH is a recent graduate of the Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Masters of Public Health Program. She received her Bachelor's at West Virginia University in Exercise Physiology with a minor in Sports and Exercise Psychology and an emphasis in Aquatic Therapy. Her research interests focus on childhood obesity research, health promotion, diabetes research and healthy lifestyle implementation. She is currently the Monongalia Program Coordinator for an early childhood obesity intervention/prevention project called Choose to Change.
Hannah Jones Walters
Hannah Jones Walters, MPH is the Project Manager for the Let’s Go! SC initiative at Eat Smart Move More SC, a statewide nonprofit that works to develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to create environments supportive of healthy eating and active living in South Carolina. Let’s Go! SC is a three-year grant initiative funded by the BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation to support and expand obesity prevention efforts in six communities in South Carolina. Hannah received her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining ESMMSC, Hannah was a Nutrition Policy Coordinator for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC, where she coordinated national efforts to improve the nutritional quality of school foods, implement calorie labeling on menus at chain restaurants, and reduce unhealthy food marketing to kids. Hannah’s experience also includes health communications, public policy, and grassroots organizing in roles with the American Heart Association and Prevention Partners.
Kyle WilsonKyle is a freshman at The John Cooper School. He has been a Junior Camp Counselor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where he helped create the fitness programming for summer campers as part of NASA’s Wellness Program. Kyle is on the Varsity basketball team, plays the piano and is involved in multiple clubs at the John Cooper School.
Jennifer Wright
Director of Working Well, SC Hospital Association Jen has spent her professional career in many facets of healthcare both in Illinois and South Carolina, from clinical to community outreach and health promotion. She earned her BS in Exercise Science from Truman State University and her Masters of Public Health with a focus in Health Policy and Administration from the University of
Illinois Chicago.
Jen began her career as a clinical exercise physiologist educating patients and families on prevention and disease management through healthy eating and active living. She then moved on to Wellness Coordinator for Hilton Head Hospital, coordinating wellness/prevention initiatives for schools and after school programs, worksites, employees of the healthcare system, and the community at large.
Jen joined the SC Hospital Association in 2011. As the Working Well Program Director, she’s engaging and activating multi-sector executives across the state to create cultures of wellbeing in their worksites. This is done by empowering wellness teams to implement policies and environments supportive of tobacco free people and places, delicious and affordable healthy food, and opportunity for physical activity during the workday. This initiative also positions hospitals as leaders and catalysts for other industries to make the healthy choice the easy choice for their employees. Most recently, taking the key principles of Working Well and coordinating state and national partners, A Healthier State House was launched. This new initiative builds on the success of A Healthier State, which targets the Governor’s Cabinet agencies and the SC Dept. of Health and Environmental Control; aligning with the SC Obesity Strategic Action plan. Evidence based resources provide members of the SC General Assembly with skills and opportunity to reach their optimal health status while making the SC State House a healthier place to govern. Jen serves on a number of local, state, and national coalitions, including the SC Medical Association Childhood Obesity Task Force, Eat Smart Move More Lowcountry, and the National Healthy Places Council. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Eat Smart Move More, SC, South Carolina’s statewide healthy eating active living coalition; and on the Executive Committee of Culinary Partners, which provides school food service departments with training and technical assistance for establishing healthy school food environments.
Steve Amos
Steve is a social entrepreneur with 30+ years experience in marketing, advertising, education, health and technology applications. He is the executive director and founder of HealthCode, established in 2009, a non-profit implementing the Million Mile Month, Marathon in a Month, Green Ribbon Schools and Healthivores programs. The programs are in use in all 50 states and 36 countries.
In 1999, he started 4empowerment, an online social networking and publishing platform for use within the education community. He conceived over $6.0 million in education grants, resulting in award-winning education technology programs.
Previously Steve was vice president of interactive marketing and account director for GSD&M (Omnicon) advertising agency, advertising account management with Lintas:New York and held international marketing positions with Textron. He has managed annual budgets exceeding $70 million. He has a M.B.A. from Wake Forest University and a BA from Florida State University.
Steve was included as a "Shapers of the Future" in 2002 by "Converge", an educational technology publication, serves on the conference advisory teams for SXSW Interactive, Edu and V2V. He’s an avid scuba diver and a founding member of the Future Forum.
Kayla Anderson
Kayla has been in the field of nutrition since 2006. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Pennsylvania State University and went on to earn her Master of Public Health and Nutrition degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her experience within nutrition has been multifaceted and includes community, clinical, and corporate nutrition and even includes experience at the FDA. As Director of Nutrition Services at Open Hand Atlanta, Kayla uses her experience within nutrition and public health to provide nutrition education, medical nutrition therapy, and assist in implementing and evaluating grant funded initiatives.
Shannon Barrett-Williams
Dr. Shannon Barrett-Williams is the Director of Special Projects at HealthMPowers. She has conducted research on youth physical activity and fitness for the last decade. She has experience teaching in public schools (K-12) as well as at the University level. In addition to research, she is also involved with writing grants.
Katrina Betancourt
Katrina Betancourt is the President and Chair for the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention (ArCOP). She has earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Kinesiological Science and is currently working on her Doctorate in Health Education with an emphasis in Health Program Planning and Health Policy. She is a Certified Public and Government Manager and currently works with over fifty Growing Healthy Communities (GHC) across the state. Her mission is to increase access to healthy and affordable foods and physical activity through policy, environment, and system changes while increasing the economic value of communities. Katrina is a proud mother of two teenage boys.
Brandy Bowlen
As Presenter/Author, Brandy was nominated as a 2016 Top 10 Nurse in the Houston Chronicle's Salute to Nurses and has 6 years experience as a school nurse and started her wellness programming in year two. She recognized that beginning with grade 2, student BMIs began to increase. She was a successful grant writer for the National Association of School Nurses SCOPE grant. Using those funds she designed Trim Epps Island, Pre-school parent engagement program, providing education on nutrition and exercise. The goal was primary prevention; to establish healthy eating habits early to ward off obesity. These efforts have continued over the years. She has successfully applied for 7 grants totally over $50,000 – NASN, CVS Health Care and the Oliver Foundation, and Klein Education Foundation. She has organized Epps Island Community Day, a community wide wellness day, for the past 5 years. This year we had over 500 attendees. She has collaborated with numerous community partners to bring quality programming to our school community. She has helped grow a staff competitive running group that serves as role models to students.
Gina Brandenburg
Gina Brandenburg has been a Tanner employee for 20 years in a variety of positions related to community health. Gina currently serves as program manager for the hospital’s Get Healthy, Live Well initiatives. She is a Master trainer for Cooking Matters and the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-management Program, a certified Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Coach, a certified Kids N Fitness instructor and is a lay leader for “Living Well with Chronic Disease” and “Living Well with Diabetes” workshops.
In addition, Gina is currently teaching part time in the Health and Community Wellness department at the University of West Georgia. Gina is a certified health education specialist (CHES) and has a master’s degree in health education from California State University at Long Beach and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Irvine. She has worked in the wellness field for more than 30 years, coming to Tanner from California where she developed and implemented comprehensive wellness programs for several corporations.
Anna Brewster
Anna Brewster, M.S., is a Program Director with the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She leads corporate, non-profit, and foundation funded projects for the Healthy Communities initiative. In this role, Anna manages projects focused on cancer prevention and control in community care settings to amplify cancer screening and early detection efforts as well as improving diet, physical activity, sun safety, and tobacco prevention. Anna is also engaged with strategic planning for the Platform and collaborates with MD Anderson’s Institutional Advancement function and faculty seeking extramural grant support for programs aligned with the Platform.
Prior to her current role, Anna worked at Deloitte Consulting. She started at the firm as a strategy and operations consultant in Deloitte's Federal Practice conducting regulatory policy analysis and advising federal government clients. After two years in consulting, Anna transferred to Deloitte's Center for Health Solutions, the health services think tank within the firm that informs stakeholders in the health care system about emerging trends using rigorous research.
Anna has a M.S. in the Social and Behavioral Sciences from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her master’s practicum with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation supporting a healthy community initiative in south Austin and a field study in India focused on non-communicable disease prevention and control. She has a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University.
Cati Brown-Johnson
Cati Brown-Johnson, PhD is an expert in behavior change communication, linguistic analysis, and tobacco control. With Postdoctoral appointments at UCSF and Stanford, she led multiple studies, investigating tobacco industry marketing to low income women (to inform counter-tobacco marketing), validating psychometric scales of tobacco-related stigma, managing an RCT, and developing online interactive medical education on stigma and e-cigarettes. With Oklahoma's TSET, Dr. Brown-Johnson has collaborated on development and evaluation of large-scale public health media campaigns, and leads their communication department in research and scholarly publishing.
Kathryn Burklund
Kathryn Burklund obtained her degree in Community Health Education, with a focus in nutrition, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has over 15 years experience in managing health projects and grants ranging from nutrition education, teaching kitchens, youth gardens, physical activity, recreation, developmental disabilities and environmental concerns. Most recently, Kathryn has had the privilege to manage the CDC funded program at the University of Tennessee Extension, focused on obesity reduction through PSE changes that increase access to produce and physical activity.
Karen Burnell
Karen Burnell is currently the Healthy Lifestyle Liaison for the Texas PTA where she helps ensure healthy opportunities are presented and available to PTA’s across the state. She supports these efforts through various forms of outreach to local and council level Healthy Lifestyle Chairs. Prior to this role, she was the Coordinated School Health Specialist for Dallas ISD where she oversaw district implementation and campus initiatives that ensured compliance with local, state, and national coordinated school health mandates. She additionally co-facilitated the district’s School Health Advisory Council and served on the Dallas Area Coalition To Prevent Childhood Obesity. Before her time with Dallas ISD, Karen was the National Training Director for the CATCH (Coordinated Approach To Child Health) Program and Project Director for a childhood obesity-prevention grant at the University of Texas-Houston, Health Science Center.
Karen’s passion for coordinated school health started with her career in elementary physical education where she enjoyed teaching young minds the importance of health and wellness. She has been recognized for her efforts by receiving the CATCH State Champion Award and CATCH Living Legacy Award, as well as the Department of State Health Services Reaching for Excellence and Discovery Award on behalf of Dallas ISD. She has a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology with a specialization in Health Education and a Master of Education in Education Administration. As a parent, Karen continues to teach healthy habits to her children and is working with her local preschool program to improve snacks and other healthy initiatives.
Katie Chennisi
Katie Chennisi, MPH, is a Public Health Analyst with Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services. Katie coordinates the Healthy Living Matters-Pasadena initiative, aimed at curbing childhood obesity in Pasadena, TX through policy and environmental changes. Katie also oversees the Early Care and Education (ECE) activities of the broader Healthy Living Matters collaborative. Katie previously served as the Coordinator for the Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System for five years. Katie also has over six years of experience in the social services field. Katie obtained her Masters of Public Health from The University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, TX and her Bachelor’s in Organizational Psychology from the Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Kimberly Clay
Dr. Kimberly Clay is the Founder and Executive Director of Play Like a Girl, a Nashville-based non-profit organization working to improve the health and well-being of girls in the U.S. through sport, physical activity and active play. Through after-school clubs and its popular Pop-Up Play Day, Play Like a Girl is leading the movement to educate, empower and equip girls to become active early and stay active for life. Mentoring-style sessions prepare girls, ages 10 to 13, by combining health education and esteem-building exercises with movement of all kinds.
Started in 2004 and backed by giants like ESPNW and Toyota, the organization has helped place more than 10,000 girls and young women across 11 states in programs where they learn healthy habits, discover a love for sport, and develop the confidence to pursue their passions. In January 2017, Play Like a Girl will launch a search for a national Board of Directors which will focus on engaging women athletes, coaches and executives in the sports industry in its 21st century mission.
Dr. Kim began her career as a social worker and public health analyst at the Tulane Xavier National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. In 2004, she surged onto the research scene as a National Institutes of Health Cancer Prevention and Control Fellow at the Minority Health Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her work, Dr. Kim visited local communities and witnessed the gender gap in physical activity and health-related outcomes firsthand, which led her to start Play Like a Girl.
Dr. Kim has also served as Public Health Advisor for the Centers Disease Control and Prevention and was a tenure-track professor at the University of Georgia until she took a sabbatical to lead Play Like a Girl as its first full-time non-compensated employee in 2010. During her tenure as a professor, Dr. Kim was responsible for developing the Master of Social Work/Master Public Health dual degree program. She has also trained and mentored others – both personally and professionally – and encouraged them to advance women’s and girl’s health through their own initiatives. Today, her mentees represent a cross-section of health and medical professionals who are making a difference in the lives of women and girls around the world.
Dr. Kim is the author of numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles exploring the relationship between cancer survivorship and spirituality. Her work has been cited in scholarly publications such as Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work, Health Education Research, and Cancer Control. She is a graduate (BA) of Xavier University of Louisiana, Tulane University’s Schools of Social Work (MSW) and Public Health (MPH), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she received her PhD in Health Education/Promotion. She’s been named one of Toyota’s Everyday Heroes, Xavier University’s 40 Under 40, and one of 50 People on the Move by the Nashville Business Journal.
Dr. Kim lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Mark Clay, MD, their sons, Joshua and Isaac, and their beagle, Brooklyn.
Amy DeLisio
Amy DeLisio is currently the Deputy Director at the Public Health Institute Center for Wellness and Nutrition with over ten years of experience working on nutrition and obesity prevention programs serving vulnerable populations. Ms. DeLisio’s work includes a broad variety of initiatives that reach low resource populations through federal, state and privately-funded interventions. Major focus areas of the Center include healthy retail initiatives, worksite wellness interventions, policy, system and environmental change strategies and partnership engagement and development. Amy is passionate about building the evidence base through effective educational, environmental and policy strategies that increase access to healthy food and safe spaces that advance health equity in low resource communities. Ms. DeLisio is a registered dietitian with a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Leslie Denner
Leslie Denner is a Marketing Strategist at VI Marketing and Branding in Oklahoma City. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Oklahoma City University with a minor in Spanish. She currently serves as a board member for Ad2OKC, an organization for young professionals in the communications industry. Leslie enjoys playing soccer, being outdoors and jumping in on voice talent projects for VI and Shape Your Future.
Diane M. Dowdy
Diane M. Dowdy, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor in the Health Promotion and Community Health Sciences Department at the Texas A&M School of Public Health and Co-Chair of the Live Smart Texas Coalition. She has a long history of leadership in development and implementation of programs at multiple levels, including community, state, and national activities. Previously, as deputy director of the Active for Life National Program Office and as program director of the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation project (both funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), she has worked to create highly-functional multidisciplinary teams, balancing critical programmatic needs while remaining responsive to the needs of project partners and the demands of their individual organizations/systems.
Prior to these responsibilities, Dr. Dowdy had extensive experience in the healthcare/community education fields as director of health promotion and health education services. Involved in health promotion programs, worksite wellness, and patient and community health education programs, Dr. Dowdy planned, implemented, and evaluated both disease management and healthy lifestyle programs in a variety of formats, allowing both individualization of approach and multiple access points.
Ryan Eason
Community Relations Manager, HCA North Texas. Ryan graduated from the University of Texas, Arlington with a BS in Exercise Science. He worked as an exercise physiologist in Cardiac Rehab before developing programs for the community.
• In 2006, the Restaurant Partner Program.
• In 2007, the Physician Speaking Program
• In 2010, School Nurse Program
• In 2010, the kids teaching kids program
• In 2013, Kids Fit Menu
His passion is to work on community health programs that make an impact Awards and Recognition.
In 2015, the kids teaching kids program received two Congressional Records from U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson (R) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D). Also, in 2015 the program received the Excellence in Community Service Award from the Texas Hospital Association.
Current and past community involvement includes:
2013-2016: Board Member, Texas Restaurant Association Education Foundation
2007-2016: Board Member, Greater Dallas Restaurant Association.
2008-2010: President, Dallas Farmers Market Friends.
Ryan was born, raised, and still lives in Dallas, Texas. He loves to network and learns by doing. Blessed with a beautiful, loving, and supportive wife, Joanne, and has two well-behaved kids Tristin (12) & Sean (9).
Alexis Etow
Alexis is a Staff Attorney at ChangeLab Solutions where she focuses on legal and policy issues related to creating healthy school environments. Prior to joining ChangeLab, she was a legal fellow in the California Attorney General’s Office, working on the Tobacco Litigation and Enforcement team. Alexis graduated from Princeton University and received her law degree from the Washington College of Law at American University.
Jenny Eyer
Jenny Eyer graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry from Abilene Christian University in 2008, and earned her MPH with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in 2012. Prior to CHILDREN AT RISK, Jenny worked as a research assistant for the University of Texas School of Public Health at the Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living to promote child health in the North Texas area. As the Senior Policy Analyst and Manager of the Center for Child Health, Research and Policy for CHILDREN AT RISK, she focuses her time on increasing access to healthy foods for children across the state, both during school hours with the Food in Schools Initiative, and after the school day ends, with the Healthy Food Retail Initiative.
Danielle Fastring
Danielle Fastring is an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. While there, she was a fellow in the Maternal Child Health Epidemiology Doctoral Training Program sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Her research interests center around health disparities present in rates for infant mortality, childhood obesity, and HIV in women. She serves on the board of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Youth Health Coalition and is a regular consultant and evaluator for their Childhood Obesity Initiative.
Lindsey Funk
Lindsey Funk has been working in social marketing since 2008. She attended Oklahoma State University and received her Bachelor’s degree in Advertising. She has been working at VI Marketing and Branding on the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust account for 8 years. She has held several positions within the Oklahoma City American Marketing Association and is the immediate past president. She resides in Oklahoma City and spends her time outside of work chasing around her 1-year-old daughter.
Marcita Galindez
Marcita Galindez has been active as both a public health professional and community volunteer for over 13 years. For the past six years she has been employed by MD Anderson Cancer Center, most recently serving as co-chair of its Energy Balance community workgroup and facilitator of its Tobacco community workgroup. Marcita holds a bachelor’s degree in education and biology from Denison University and a master’s in public health administration from the Maxine Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University in Ohio.
In addition to her professional endeavors to promote energy balance, Marcita continues to work on the EBT at the Farmers Market Group for the Houston Food Policy Workgroup. She also promotes the use of the Health Congregations Toolkit -a guide to healthy living for faith-based organizations.
Marcita believes that every family deserves to live in a safe environment, and have access to healthy foods and healthcare. She envisions a healthy Houston to be a place where food swamps and deserts no longer exist and where families can engage in physical activity in their own neighborhoods without fearing for their safety. Moreover, Marcita believes in ubiquitous access to preventative care for all Houstonians regardless of their socioeconomic Status.
Julie Gardner
Julie Gardner, M.Ed., CHES, is an Extension Program Specialist for Community Health with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Currently she serves the Central Texas area and works within the agency and community to design and implement relevant health education programs to improve health behaviors and reduce the risk of chronic disease. Mrs. Gardner serves as the project director for a Central Texas 1115 Medicaid Transformation Waiver Regional project in partnership with Coryell Memorial Healthcare System in Gatesville, Texas. This project targets disease prevention and health promotion in youth and adults and serves the counties of Bosque, Coryell, Falls, Hamilton, Hill, Limestone, and McLennan. She supervises six health educators who have reached over 3,000 individuals in schools and communities through the 1115 regional project. Julie also provides leadership to other Texas A&M AgriLife programs including worksite wellness initiatives; food, health, and agriculture initiatives; and the Dinner Tonight healthy cooking program. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in Health Studies with an emphasis on Population Health at Texas Woman’s University.
Kristina Giard-Bradford
Kristina Giard-Bradford received her Masters of Art in Education in Health, Physical Education and Recreation from Tennessee State University and is currently working at the Tennessee Department of Health as a Program Director with the Centers of Disease Control “1305” grant, addressing Nutrition, Physical Activity, Obesity and School Health. Her professional interest focuses on helping Tennessee become a healthier state overall, and she realizes the importance of balancing policy, systems and environmental work with programming. She tries to “walk the talk” herself incorporating wellness breaks, lunch walk breaks and other physical activity into her daily life. In addition, she volunteers to lead office yoga and Laughter Yoga with her colleagues and volunteers to teach a gentle yoga class at her local library. She wishes her knees still liked running, but is grateful that her childhood experience with youth running programs, in both middle and high school, helped pave a strong foundation for lifelong wellness.
Ellie Gladstone
Ellie Gladstone is a senior staff attorney at ChangeLab Solutions, where she works on creating policy-based strategies to increase opportunities for healthy eating and active living. Much of Ellie’s work focuses on shared use, sugary drink regulation, and engaging faith-based organizations in community health and wellness efforts. She regularly provides training and technical assistance to state and local governments, community-based organizations, and public health advocates. Prior to joining ChangeLab Solutions, she worked as a real estate litigation attorney with a private law firm, Miller Starr Regalia. Before becoming an attorney, Ellie worked as an epidemiologist, focusing on child health and development. Ellie graduated from the University of Texas, Austin, and holds a JD from UC Davis and an MPH (epidemiology & biostatistics) from UC Berkeley.
Deanna M Hoelscher
Deanna M Hoelscher, PhD, RD, LD, CNS is the John P McGovern Professor in Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living, and Associate Regional Dean for Research at The University of Texas School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus. Her research interests include child and adolescent nutrition, school-based health promotion programs, dietary assessment methodology, evaluation of child obesity policies, linkages between primary care and public health, and dissemination of school health programs.
She is current principal investigator of the Texas Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (TX CORD) Project funded by the CDC and the School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) survey funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services. She has been the principal investigator on many other NIH, RWJF, and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation grants, including the Child and Adolescent Trial for Cardiovascular Health (CATCH), Lunch is in the Bag, and the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation study.
Dr. Hoelscher was President of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) and is currently a Fellow. She was a reviewer on the Institute of Medicine consensus reports on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States (2010), School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children (2010), and Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way toward Healthier Youth (2007). Dr. Hoelscher was also a member of the IOM committee on Evaluating Progress of Obesity Prevention Efforts.
Jamie Jeffrey
Dr. Jeffrey is a pediatrician and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at WVU School of Medicine-Charleston Division. She is also the Medical Director of HealthyKids Wellness and Weight Management Program at CAMC. She received her medical degree from Marshall University School of Medicine and completed a pediatric residency at Akron Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio. She is very blessed with a wonderful husband and four fantastic children, ages 10, 16, 20 and 22.
After noticing escalating weight and BMI in her patients, she has devoted her career to pediatric clinical, research, advocacy and community outreach in the field of childhood obesity. She was the founder of HealthyKids, which is a multidisciplinary, family based treatment program that includes a dietician, psychologist and exercise physiologist, to offer additional support to motivated families.
As project director of KEYS 4 HealthyKids, obesity prevention collaborative, she hopes to not only reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, but focus on policies and the built environment to enable more permanent change. This will hopefully provide the landscape where healthy options are more readily available and the EASY choice once again. She serves as the Team Leader for the Childcare Policy Team for KEYS 4 HealthyKids to shift efforts to our youngest generation of children for a healthy start.
Gregory D. Johnston
Dr. Gregory D. Johnston is the associate director of the Covenant BodyMind Initiative. Dr. Johnston writes and presents extensively on comprehensive wellness issues, specifically in an adolescent student population. His research interests include wellness development in adolescents and emerging adults, as well as a holistic approach to reducing childhood obesity. He proudly co-wrote the first two Texas Education Agency approved wellness courses. Prior to working at Texas Tech University, Dr. Johnston served as a legislative assistant for a Member of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Kelsey Keel
Kelsey Keel, MPH, is Director of the Childhood Obesity Initiative for the MS Gulf Coast Youth Health Coalition, a Fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, a local nonprofit organization. Their primary program, Let’s Go! Gulf Coast, encourages healthy eating and active living for MS Gulf Coast children, their families, and the communities in which they live, learn, work, and play! This adaptation of the nationally recognized childhood obesity program, Let's Go!, is designed to combat obesity on the MS Gulf Coast. Let's Go! Gulf Coast uses a multi-setting approach to reach youth and families based on the premise that if families are exposed to the same health promotion messages through several settings, and if those settings have policies and environments that support healthy choices, they will be more likely to adopt or maintain the behaviors in their daily lives. As Director, she facilitates relationships between Coalition partners, committee members, stakeholders, and community members and seeks partnerships with agencies, organizations, coalitions and community groups that work to address childhood obesity. Kelsey has extensive experience working to promote healthy lifestyle changes at the local level, and has worked with Head Start Centers, school districts, after school programs, early child care centers, community organizations, and local worksites.
Kelsey received her MPH from Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her passion is to promote and encourage healthy living in youth and families through the development and implementation of health promotion and education programs.
Debra Kibbe
Debra Kibbe is a Senior Research Associate in the Georgia Health Policy Center at Georgia State University where she has worked since October 2011 on obesity and health-related policy and programs throughout the United States. From 1998 to 2011, Debra served as Director of the Physical Activity and Nutrition (PAN) Program for the International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation (ILSI RF) headquartered in Washington, D.C. where she coordinated, evaluated and published results from several school, community and health care intervention projects aimed at the prevention and management of pediatric overweight. Prior to joining the PAN program, Debra was the assistant volleyball competition manager for the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Active at the national level, Debra is faculty for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetic’s certificate program on child and adolescent overweight and was a member of the education subcommittee of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Implementation Plan initiative. Debra co-chairs the data and evaluation sub-group of the Georgia SHAPE childhood obesity prevention initiative. She is an experienced presenter completing more than 100 presentations throughout the United States and 15 countries on topics ranging from school-based health interventions to social marketing to improving obesity management practice patterns among clinicians. Debra earned her B.S. in Psychology from Hiram College (Ohio), and her M.S. in Personnel & Employment Relations from Georgia State University.
Tiereny LloydAs the Director of Health and Wellness Initiatives, Tiereny directs a national, state and local level effort to advance health and wellness policy for children and youth in afterschool, summer learning, early care and education programs. Before joining the Afterschool Alliance in January 2016, Tiereny served as Senior Manager of Strategic Relationships at SHAPE America for Let’s Move! Active Schools. Previous to her work with Let’s Move! Active Schools, Tiereny managed an oral health campaign to reduce pediatric dental disease while at the National Children’s Oral Health Foundation. She also developed a national physical activity program for Head Start children while working at the National Head Start Association.
Although those roles afforded her a national perspective of child health and wellness’ standards and practice, it was through her previous roles as a local pre-school director and teacher that often grounds, influences, and provides practical meaning to her advocacy work. Tiereny is a graduate of George Washington University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in maternal and child health.
Michelle Lombardo
Dr. Lombardo is the President, co-owner and creator of The OrganWise Guys Inc. Currently she is Project Manager for Thriving Communities, Thriving Children, a $1.2 million, W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded project that has resulted in statistically significant health improvements for Head Start children. From 2009-2013, she was Project Manager for HOPE2, a $2 million, six state childhood obesity prevention project also funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Statistically significant results from a four year quasi-experimental study that used OWG as its health education curriculum are published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the American Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved.
Dr. Lombardo is the author of The OrganWise Guys series, which promotes the benefits of good nutrition and preventive healthcare practices through creative characters playing the roles of the vital body organs. The curriculum includes over 50 books as well as a wide variety interactive nutrition education tools. She is also the Creative Director on the all of the companion multi-media components She conducts dozens of “train the trainer” sessions on these materials each year nationwide in addition to a wide variety of professional speaking engagements. Dr. Lombardo received her D.C. from Life College of Chiropractic and was in private practice for 10 years prior to starting The OrganWise Guys Inc.
Anna Macnak
Anna Macnak is a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified diabetes educator working with the City of San Antonio Metropolitan Health District as the dietitian for the ¡Por Vida! program, a restaurant recognition program that helps adults and children identify the healthiest items on the menu. Anna graduated from Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington in 2009 and completed her dietetic internship at Texas State University in San Marcos. She has 5 years of experience with working in the field of obesity prevention and treatment, first in the clinical setting as the lead dietitian for a bariatric surgery center and now as a dietitian in community health. Anna is passionate about helping people discover the healthy foods that they enjoy through cooking and tasting new foods and food preparations.
Laciana McIntyre
Laciana McIntyre, MS, a native of Brandon, Mississippi received her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and Master of Science in Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion from Mississippi State University. Ms. McIntyre currently serves as the Health and Wellness Coordinator for The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. There, she works to improve the public’s knowledge about health, with the overall goal of lowering the risk of obesity-related diseases. Ms. McIntyre creates and implements unique, youth programs designed to make eating healthy and living well interesting and fun. She also works closely with school health councils across the state, educating them on health application in the school setting and ways to improve overall student, faculty, and community health.
Eric Moreno
Eric Moreno is a Content Curator for the Salud America! program at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has a BA in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Masters in Communications from Gonzaga University. He specializes in health equity topics for Salud America!
Lauren Morris
Lauren Morris started working with the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extensions service in December of 2015 acting as Project Coordinator for a new obesity-prevention initiative named Arkansas Healthy LIFE (Lifestyles Involving Food and Exercise). Before joining the Cooperative Extension, Lauren worked with local school-based obesity-prevention programs for the City of Little Rock. Lauren started her career with Save the Children after receiving a Masters Degree in Public Health from Boston University working as a Nutrition and Physical Activity Specialists for afterschool programs across the South in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. She expanded her expertise to also include school-based literacy and early childhood programs, acting as state lead for these programs in low-income, rural communities across Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska. Lauren lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband Grant.
Andi Nelson
Andi Nelson currently serves as the Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education ProgramTM Coordinator at Recipe for Success Foundation. She has over two decades of experience as an educator, including in nutrition and wellness education. Her most recent work the last 5 years has been in education professional development and in-school programming design and implementation for NASA Science Mission Directorate Education. Ms. Nelson grew up eating what was grown on her farm, and supporting local farmers with what wasn't grown there. Her education background is in Immunology, Science Education and Child Development.
Sonia Noriega
Sonia Noriega is the Lead Teacher for Health and Physical Education for the Ysleta Independent School District (YISD) in El Paso, TX. Born and raised in El Paso, she graduated from YISD’s Del Valle High School and is a product of the district she currently works for. Sonia attended the University of Texas at El Paso where she received her Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology with a minor in education in 1998. That same year, she began her teaching career at Rio Bravo Middle School in YISD where she taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade health and physical education for three years. She also coached volleyball, track and soccer.
In 2001, Sonia transferred to Ascarate Elementary in YISD where she taught physical education for eight years. While there, the school participated in the district’s annual Physical Education Demonstration Day, an event that is entering its 33rd year this May. Her students also participated annually in the local Vista Hills Optimist Club Track Meet and, from 2002-2006, she coached the girls’ JV soccer team at Ysleta High School. In 2009, Sonia became the Lead Teacher for Health and Physical Education and is very proud to continue to be a part of the YISD family.
Emily O’Sullivan
Emily is passionate about helping individuals and organizations reach their fullest potential by focusing on holistic health. She has been working in the field of corporate health promotion for the past seven years and is currently the Program Manager for the South Carolina Hospital Association’s Working Well Initiative, a cross-sector strategy addressing healthy eating and active, tobacco-free living to establish cultures of wellness in worksites throughout South Carolina. Working Well has partnered with over 100 organizations in SC, including hospitals, public and private businesses, state agencies, municipalities, school districts, universities, and state agencies to create sustainable cultures of wellness using evidence-based best practices focused on policy, systems, and environmental change.
Prior to her work at SCHA, she was a Health Promotions Coordinator at BlueCross BlueShield of SC where she developed behavior change programs for BlueCross members and provided onsite wellness solutions for employer groups. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Health Promotion and Education from Clemson University and a Master’s degree in Health Promotion Management from Nebraska Methodist College. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist.
Eliza Paul
Eliza Paul has a professional and academic background in food security and nutrition for children under 5 years of age in international emergencies. She has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy with a specialization in Food Security and Public Nutrition Policy from Tufts University, and professional experience designing nutrition and health interventions for a number of government, nonprofit, and UN agencies in disaster situations. She has been the director of Rainbow In My Tummy since February 2016, and is enjoying applying her international experience to the early childhood sector back home in the US.
Maria Eugenia Perez
Dr. Maria Eugenia Perez leads the implementation of the MEND program in the Rio Grande Valley for the UTHealth School of Public Health Brownsville Regional Campus. The MEND program is a multi-national, evidence-based, family-based intervention program for children aged 6-13 years who are above a healthy weight. Dr. Perez has an EdD. Under her leadership the MEND program has already reached 1011 children since 2014. MEND is an important collaborative program included in the portfolio of programs led by Dr. Belinda Reininger to promote a culture of health in the Rio Grande Valley region. The programs in the region are designed to address the social determinants of health associated with chronic disease prevention and management and include 1) health education programs for individual adults and children, 2) health promotion programs to create healthy environments and policies, and 3) health communication programs to create mass media and social media messages supporting healthy lifestyles.
Mike Pomeroy
Mike serves as Senior Program Director of Brighter Bites, overseeing and directing programmatic aspects of Brighter Bites across all three cities, 65 sites, and programmatic staff, including program implementation and evaluation, community relations, and site and volunteer recruitment and engagement. He has been an integral part of the Brighter Bites roll out and development over the past three years in his work at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at the UT School of Public Health, where he worked closely with Brighter Bites Co-Founder Shreela Sharma, PhD. Mike has had an interest in improving food access and reducing food insecurity since he became a graduate student at the UT School of Public Health in Houston. He lobbied for improved national school lunch standards in 2010 as an intern with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and worked with Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign in 2012. He has also served on Houston ISD’s School Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) for the past three years. Mike obtained his MPH in 2010 with an emphasis in health policy, and worked with the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living from 2008-2015 on multiple health promotion research projects, including the pilot project that launched Brighter Bites.
Andi Ridgway
Andi Ridgway is currently the Branch Chief for Hometown Health Improvement in the Center for Local Public Health at the Arkansas Department of Health. Andi is a registered dietitian by profession and also a Certified Diabetes Educator. Andi works with ADH colleagues and state partners to improve the health of Arkansas communities through Hometown Health Improvement. Andi is responsible for developing and maintaining state-level partnerships, coordinating staff training and program development at the state level, managing fiscal appropriations, and producing state and federal reports. Andi currently serves as the Past Chair and Secretary for the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention. Andi graduated from the University of Central Arkansas for her BS degree in Dietetics, and then attended Oklahoma State University for her Master’s Degree in Food, Nutrition, and Institution Administration. She has received the Certificate of Public Health Leadership and participated in the South Central Public Health Leadership Institute. Andi was recently awarded the 2016 Outstanding Achievement award and the 2016 Sue Parker award from the Arkansas Public Health Association.
Doraleena Sammons Hackett
Over 34 years of experience in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Program development and implementation including nutrition, cardiovascular disease prevention, cancer prevention and early detection, women’s health, rape and sexual assault, health education, physical activity, HIV and program integration.
• Over 10 years experience with WIC Program, including State WIC Director for the State of
Georgia.
• Over 30 years of management experience and physical resource management.
• Over 20 years of experience in Policy, Environment, and Systems (PES) Change.
• Over 30 years of management experience of large and small workforces.
• Over 30 years planning, organizing and directing the programmatic, federal and community
grant development, implementation and monitoring; and, fiscal activities.
• Extensive experience in the development of numerous categorical federal grants.
• Over 30 years experience in budget preparations, grants management, resource allocation and
monitoring.
• Expertise in the development of culturally sensitive community-based outreach and educational plays, videotapes, brochures, and training modules.
• Participation on several national, regional and statewide planning and advisory
councils/committees and expert scientific panels.
• Experienced in providing training and technical assistance. Policy, Environment and Systems
(PES) Change Director Directors of Health Promotion and Education (DHPE) – Washington, DC
(January 2011-Present)
• Markets and assures delivery of all health policy training, particularly Systems Change for Health (SCH) competency-based training course on health policy and environmental change; develops contracts for training with state and local health departments and their partners.
• Direct systems and functions associated with the implementation of Systems Change for Health.
• Experience developing licensing and certification Systems Change for Health (SCH) competency-based training course for CHES and MCHES credits.
• Responsible for Program Administration and Customer Relations (Pre- and Post- Training).
• Conducts quality assurance monitoring site visits.
• Assesses and provides technical assistance to state and local health departments.
• Works collaboratively with the Director of Health Equity and the Fellowship/Internship Manager on trainings for students, technical assistance and other areas.
• Staff to the Membership and Health Policy Subcommittees of the DHPE Board; serves on the
DHPE Annual member meeting Planning Committee.
• Facilitated the rebranding of Shaping Policy for Health™ to Systems Change for Health.
Scientific Reviewer for Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (2012-Present)
New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services – Trenton, New Jersey (1989-2009)
Director, Chronic Disease Prevention & Control Services (July 2004-October 2009)
Program Manager, Cancer and Reproductive Health Services (March 2000—June 2004)
Project Director, New Jersey Cancer Education and Early Detection Program (NJCEED) (July 1996-March 2000)
Shreela Sharma
Dr. Sharma is a trained dietitian and physical therapist. As a health professional, she strongly felt she was treating preventable diseases stemming from poor lifestyles: heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. She saw the repercussions were devastating the community. Her love for teaching, academics and the community led her to purse a PhD in public health, focusing on epidemiology. Her interest is in nutrition and physical activity-based interventions to address obesity via school, family, and the community, predominantly in low-income minority populations. She co-found Brighter Bites, a partner program of the Houston Food Bank, and serves on the Mayor of Houston’s Go Healthy Houston Task Force.
Katherine Shary
Katherine Shary is a registered dietitian with Strong4Life (S4L) where she coordinates the S4L WIC program grant. This includes training WIC nutrition providers in all 18 public health districts to implement patient centered counseling strategies and the use of our S4L tools with their clients – including pregnant and breastfeeding women as well as children birth to 5 years of age. She also coordinates the S4L book program, obesity prevention at the pediatricians office.
Before coming to Children’s, Katherine’s experiences ranged from consulting with Cleveland Clinics Lifestyle 180 Program to home health agencies. She helped implement an outpatient billing system for dietitians at Grady Health System and managed the outpatient nutrition program at four of Grady’s outpatient health clinics. Katherine is currently the reimbursement representative for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Bharti Shetye
Dr. Bharti Shetye earned her medical degree from the University of Mumbai. She completed her Internal Medicine residency training from programs affiliated with the University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and went on to be certified as a bariatrician with the American Board of Obesity Medicine. Her past work has included serving as the Chief Resident at the Good Samaritan Hospital, affiliated with John Hopkins University, Associate Medical Director of the hyperbaric medicine unit at Rope St. Francis Health System and as a primary care physician at St. James Santee Health Center. Currently, Dr. Shetye is the Medical Director of the Weight Management Clinic at the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County. She is passionate about teaching her clients how to live a holistic lifestyle, which is what she follows in her daily life. Her emphasis is on living in harmony with the “laws of nature” – nourishing one’s body with whole foods and exercising on a daily basis. Her Fruit and Vegetable Voucher Prescription program is built around this foundation, where she believes everyone should have easy access to fresh produce.
Sarah Sliwa
Sarah Sliwa, PhD is Health Scientist at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the Division of Population Health (DPH)’s School Health Branch (SHB). She has over a decade of experience working on initiatives to prevent childhood obesity in community, school, and out-of-school settings (OST). As part of the Research Application and Evaluation Team in the School Health Branch, Sarah leads work related to school-based OST programs as well as school-based obesity prevention strategies. Sarah earned a PhD in Food Policy from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
Raj SolankiRaj is an 8th grader at the Gifted and Talented Academy at Quail Valley Middle School. His favorite hobby is basketball; he is a member of his middle school’s team. He also enjoys music a lot. He plays guitar for his middle school jazz and also plays percussion for his band. He actively volunteers around the community, looking to make a difference. He hopes to major in business and later on take his knowledge to law school.
Andrew E. Springer
Andrew E. Springer, DrPH is an Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at the University of Texas School of Public Health(UTSPH)-Austin Regional Campus with over 15 years of experience in the design and implementation of youth-led community health and development programs and child and adolescent health promotion research in the U.S. and Latin America. In addition to active community health practice experience that includes service on nonprofit boards- as the co-chair of the Michael & Susan Dell Community Collaborative for Child Health and as a board member with the nonprofit Learn All The Time. He has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator on research projects with funding from Robert Wood Johnson, CDC, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Colorado Health Foundation. This includes the evaluation of state-mandated legislation to promote physical activity in elementary and middle school children, reduction of sedentary behavior in Hispanic children living on the Texas-Mexico border, implementation and evaluation of the CATCH program in elementary and middle school students, and the design and evaluation of the Active Play – Active Learning project, an intervention study aimed at increasing children’s physical activity during the school day in Austin, Texas and Pueblo, Colorado. He currently serves as the Co-Principal Investigator of the ¡Actívate Ya! project, a National Institute of Health-funded study aimed at preventing tobacco use and promoting physical activity in Uruguayan secondary school students.
Jamila Taylor
As the Associate Director of the Mississippi State University Extension Service’s Early Years Network, Jamila Taylor oversees the technical assistance, training and family support programs. She obtained her Bachelor of Nursing degree from Howard University then went onto obtain a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. Taylor has received numerous early childhood credentials which include the Mississippi Directors Credential, CDA and Program Administration Scale (PAS) certifications. Taylor has always had a passion for working with young children and families not only in the healthcare setting, but also as an owner and director of an early childhood program in Starkville, MS. Taylor has used her early childhood, healthcare knowledge and business expertise to assist early care programs in the state of Mississippi in growing quality childcare programs.
Christina Thi
Christina Thi is obesity prevention coordinator for the Obesity Prevention Program in the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention Section in the Department of State Health Services. Christina coordinates nutrition policy, systems, and environmental approaches for the program. Her current work focuses on the adoption of food service guidelines and nutrition standards in childcare, worksite, and community settings across the state. She has a Master of Public Health in Management, Policy and Community Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a doctoral student in Health Promotion at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Kathy Tucker
Kathy Tucker received a BBA in Marketing from Southern Methodist University. She is currently Director of HealthWorks! North Mississippi and is responsible for oversight of virtually all aspects of this interactive children’s health education center, including staffing, strategic planning, budgets and revenues, grant funded project management, and program outreach to the community. She oversees operation of the FIT (Families in Transformation) Program, a collaborative multi-department effort initiated at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, MS.
Mudita Upadhyaya
Mudita Upadhyaya is post doctoral fellow in the department of Epidemiology at University of Texas, School of Public Health, Houston. She is the recipient of multiple awards including Fulbright Masters Leadership Fellowship. She has extensive research and work experience in work-site wellness programs to prevent obesity among healthcare employees. Currently she is working on the 'TMC Overweight and Obesity Prevention project'. In this role she serves as the liaison between work-sites and the evaluation teams, and is the student lead for monitoring and evaluation. This project is focused on reducing obesity rates, and encourage healthy food choices among employees.
Jenny Varghese
Jenny Varghese, MPH, CHES, joined Harris Country Public Health & Environmental Services (HCPHES) as a Health Education Program Specialist in June 2013. Healthy Dining Matters (HDM) is one health education program Jenny leads at HCPHES. Along with HDM, Jenny works on other health education programs with topics such as food safety, child health, cross cultural communications, community empowerment, and various health policy related initiatives. Before coming to HCPHES, Jenny worked for the Texas Obesity Research Center on the Program Evaluation Team, for CDC’s national multisite Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration Project. Jenny has over 6 years of experience in program evaluation and management, health education and research. Jenny received both her masters and undergraduate degree from Baylor University in Waco, TX. Currently, she is a Doctoral Candidate in the Management, Policy and Community Health Division at the University Of Texas Health Science Center, School of Public Health located in the Houston Medical Center. In her free time, she works on her child health policy dissertation, runs, and leads a backyard Bible study during the week.
Kara Viggiano
Kara Viggiano, BS, MPH is a recent graduate of the Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Masters of Public Health Program. She received her Bachelor's at West Virginia University in Exercise Physiology with a minor in Sports and Exercise Psychology and an emphasis in Aquatic Therapy. Her research interests focus on childhood obesity research, health promotion, diabetes research and healthy lifestyle implementation. She is currently the Monongalia Program Coordinator for an early childhood obesity intervention/prevention project called Choose to Change.
Hannah Jones Walters
Hannah Jones Walters, MPH is the Project Manager for the Let’s Go! SC initiative at Eat Smart Move More SC, a statewide nonprofit that works to develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to create environments supportive of healthy eating and active living in South Carolina. Let’s Go! SC is a three-year grant initiative funded by the BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation to support and expand obesity prevention efforts in six communities in South Carolina. Hannah received her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining ESMMSC, Hannah was a Nutrition Policy Coordinator for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC, where she coordinated national efforts to improve the nutritional quality of school foods, implement calorie labeling on menus at chain restaurants, and reduce unhealthy food marketing to kids. Hannah’s experience also includes health communications, public policy, and grassroots organizing in roles with the American Heart Association and Prevention Partners.
Kyle WilsonKyle is a freshman at The John Cooper School. He has been a Junior Camp Counselor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where he helped create the fitness programming for summer campers as part of NASA’s Wellness Program. Kyle is on the Varsity basketball team, plays the piano and is involved in multiple clubs at the John Cooper School.
Jennifer Wright
Director of Working Well, SC Hospital Association Jen has spent her professional career in many facets of healthcare both in Illinois and South Carolina, from clinical to community outreach and health promotion. She earned her BS in Exercise Science from Truman State University and her Masters of Public Health with a focus in Health Policy and Administration from the University of
Illinois Chicago.
Jen began her career as a clinical exercise physiologist educating patients and families on prevention and disease management through healthy eating and active living. She then moved on to Wellness Coordinator for Hilton Head Hospital, coordinating wellness/prevention initiatives for schools and after school programs, worksites, employees of the healthcare system, and the community at large.
Jen joined the SC Hospital Association in 2011. As the Working Well Program Director, she’s engaging and activating multi-sector executives across the state to create cultures of wellbeing in their worksites. This is done by empowering wellness teams to implement policies and environments supportive of tobacco free people and places, delicious and affordable healthy food, and opportunity for physical activity during the workday. This initiative also positions hospitals as leaders and catalysts for other industries to make the healthy choice the easy choice for their employees. Most recently, taking the key principles of Working Well and coordinating state and national partners, A Healthier State House was launched. This new initiative builds on the success of A Healthier State, which targets the Governor’s Cabinet agencies and the SC Dept. of Health and Environmental Control; aligning with the SC Obesity Strategic Action plan. Evidence based resources provide members of the SC General Assembly with skills and opportunity to reach their optimal health status while making the SC State House a healthier place to govern. Jen serves on a number of local, state, and national coalitions, including the SC Medical Association Childhood Obesity Task Force, Eat Smart Move More Lowcountry, and the National Healthy Places Council. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Eat Smart Move More, SC, South Carolina’s statewide healthy eating active living coalition; and on the Executive Committee of Culinary Partners, which provides school food service departments with training and technical assistance for establishing healthy school food environments.
