2024 School Wellness Summer Symposium Speakers

Adam Bullock is a regional School Wellness Coordinator and a member of CCE's Statewide DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) Facilitation Team.

Lauren Burr is currently the Food Service Director at the Enlarged City School District of Middletown. She brings extensive leadership in optimizing school nutrition programs. With a background in Nutrition and Dietetics, Lauren has led successful initiatives at the Enlarged City School District of Middletown and is dedicated to enhancing meal quality, compliance, and community engagement, driving impactful changes that promote health and wellness across educational settings. 

Kristie Cabrera (they/them) is an accessibility and inclusivity consultant who is queer, latine, and neurodivergent. They use their background in occupational therapy to guide organizations with improving their accessibility and inclusivity practices. Kristie is particularly interested in supporting organizations within food and nature spaces. Kristie believes that having access to food and natural spaces is healing and therefore food and natural spaces need to be accessible and inclusive. When working with organizations, Kristie focuses on teaching others how to unpack ableism, understand how disability history plays a vital role in our world today, expanding views of the body/mind, and focusing on improving the organization's physical and social spaces, as well as curriculums and programs.

Amanda Cappadona holds a Master's in Nutrition and is a credentialed Registered Dietitian. She has been working in the Community Nutrition field for 9 years and has a passion for child nutrition and encouraging fruit and vegetable intake in school-age children. 

Erica Dahl is a SNAP-Ed Community Nutrition Educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension in Orange County. She has a BS in Nutrition Science from Russell Sage College and an MPH from Southern New Hampshire University. She has worked with schools across the Hudson Valley for seven years, leading workshops on movement in the classroom. As an avid runner, she is passionate about teaching families how to transform their physical and mental health by finding joy in living active lives.

Megan Dhanabala is a SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension, covering Dutchess, Columbia and Greene Counties! Her greatest passion is working with youth, especially in the classroom! She has worked with schools in the Hudson Valley for many years, leading workshops on eating well and movement in the classroom.

Caitlin Fitzpatrick is the Associate Director of Nutrition & Health Services at Food Bank For New York City, overseeing Food Bank’s Cook Shop nutrition education program. She has been with the Food Bank for over a decade, putting her creative skills to work realizing the need for improved access to good food, better health and quality education. 

Justine Hays is a SNAP-Ed Nutritionist and registered dietitian. She has worked with SNAP-Ed and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Niagara County for 9 years. She holds a M.S. in Dietetics from D’Youville College in Buffalo, NY. She lives in Buffalo with her husband and daughter. 

Meredith Hill-Patel is an Educational Consultant with RootEd Educational Consulting LLC. She leads the Literacy and Nutrition project for the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education, and Policy – authoring a guide for teaching food and nutrition through literacy, leading professional development.

Bintou Hinds holds a M.S. in Human Nutrition from University of Bridgeport. She has worked in the field of public health nutrition in Dutchess county for the past 11 years. She was the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutritionist and breastfeeding coordinator with Sun River Healthcare for 6 of those years. She now serves as a regional team leader and occasional Spanish language nutrition educator for SNAP Ed HV-Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orange County. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband and son.

Alex Kennedy is a Community Partner Coordinator under Food Bank for New York City’s Campus Pantry program. In her position she assists K-12, Universities, and Youth Engagement Programs with their day-to-day food pantry operations, trains new workers and volunteers, and ensures sites have what they need to be successful. As a student, Alex began volunteering at Pace University’s on-campus food pantry in 2020. She was then hired as a Student Coordinator and was eventually tasked with co-coordinating the pantry upon becoming an official staff member in the Office of Multicultural Affairs. During her time at Pace, she co-created a food security program: Fare Trade. This initiative allowed students with excess meal plan dollars to reallocate funds to a general account that would then be disbursed to students who’d depleted their meal plan account. Alex is committed to doing what she can to address food insecurity.

Melissa Kimbrell is a community health specialist currently working as a Regional Coordinator for SNAP-Ed in NY. She has a BS in Exercise Science from University of South Carolina, and an MPH from University of Maryland. Her public health career has included roles focusing on health policy, communication, and in-community programming over 15 years. Her passion is to apply principles of health literacy, uplift evidence-based approaches and emphasize the importance of togetherness through all elements of her work. She believes everyone deserves access to nourishing foods and the confidence to prepare and enjoy it.

Pam Koch, EdD, RD, CDN conducts research with schools and communities to give people power to demand healthy, just, sustainable food. She translates her research into curricula for school teachers, recommendations for policy makers, and resources for advocates. She has evaluated many school-based programs that improve school meals, create school gardens, conduct cooking sessions, and promote food justice. She has taught several courses within the Program in Nutrition at Teachers College at Colombia University since 1996. Her work contributes to increased access to nutritious, delicious and sustainable food for all.

Troy Martin is the Children’s Programs Coordinator at the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. Troy has coordinated the Food Bank’s BackPack and School Pantry programs since 2017, growing and maintaining the Food Bank’s partnerships with school districts across our six-county service area. Working with individual schools, district administrators, sponsoring organizations, as well as BackPack program donors, Troy works to ensure that students referred to the BackPack program receive a weekly set of nutritious, child appropriate foods throughout the school year. Over the summer months, Troy coordinates the Food Bank’s Summer BackPack Program, which distributes food through both existing school year partner schools and other organizations that host youth over the summer, such as Libraries and Town Camps/Recreation Departments.

Kim Mullen is a Nutrition Resource Educator focusing on Policy, Systems, and Environmental work with the SNAP-Ed NY Program at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Rensselaer County.

Caitlyn Parry has been a Food Program Evaluation Specialist for over 7 years. She works as a supervisor overseeing a Culinary Enhancement team, a recently developed team, that will specialize in nutrition/menu, farm to school initiatives, wellness policies and culinary assistance. The Culinary Enhancement team will work with schools with menu creation, assistance, and training. Improving, overseeing farm to school efforts and initiatives, and providing culinary expertise to schools across the state. 

Josephine Quiocho embarked on her nutrition journey in the garden, finding profound joy in cultivating food and connecting with nature. However, her passion soon revealed a stark reality: the widespread challenges surrounding food—from growth to consumption. Motivated by this revelation, she pursued a master’s degree in food studies at New York University and joined Cornell Cooperative Extension’s SNAP-Ed Hudson Valley team. Today, Josephine leverages her seed-to-table experiences to enhance food literacy and security across the Hudson Valley.

Shayna Russo is currently a SNAP-Ed NY Project Manager for the Hudson Valley Region and Statewide SNAP-Ed NY Technical Assistance Coordinator. She is driven to create ‘change’ that supports healthy lifestyles, while simultaneously utilizing knowledge, skills and abilities relative to health, education, nutrition, fitness, collaboration and teamwork. With degrees in Health Promotion Management and Exercise Science, she has worked as a Personal Trainer, Strength and Conditioning Coach, Swim Instructor, Public Health Educator and Regional Coordinator. For over 20 years Shayna has used her facilitation and communication skills to promote an all-inclusive, high-performing culture where groups embrace and leverage each other’s talents to achieve full potential. Over the past 15 years, through grant funded roles with Cornell Cooperative Extension, much of her efforts has been focused on the health and wellness of low-income communities in the Hudson Valley. Shayna and her husband live in Dutchess County with their two kids and two dogs (Brownie and Cupcake). You will often find her around town on some early morning runs, drinking some hot tea and chauffeuring her kids to practice and games.

Suzi Sullivan teaches at Gov. George Clinton Elementary School in Poughkeepsie. She has a Bachelor of Science in Childhood Education (grades 1-6) with a concentration in biology and Master of Science degree in Special Education (grades 1-6) from SUNY New Paltz. Suzi has taught first, third, and fourth grade and this year will be teaching second grade. Eight years ago, she was able to start a school garden at Clinton with help from The Poughkeepsie Farm Project, and grants from Lowe’s Toolbox for Education Grant; Whole Kids Foundation Grant; and Tractor Supply Dig-It Grant. Suzi has met many wonderful people through the Poughkeepsie City School District’s Wellness Committee; It’s there that she connected with SNAP-Ed and the Healthy Classrooms’ project.