This year’s FASI Donations will be going to DC Central Kitchen. DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) is an iconic nonprofit and social enterprise that combats hunger and poverty through job training and job creation. Our approach provides hands-on culinary job training while creating living-wage jobs and bringing nutritious, dignified food where it is most needed in our city. We serve scratch-cooked farm-to-school meals in DC schools; deliver fresh, affordable produce to corner stores in neighborhoods without supermarkets; provide delicious catering; and operate fast-casual cafes. DCCK has been featured in national media including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, National Geographic, PBS NewsHour, and more. To learn more, visit dccentralkitchen.org or follow @dccentralkitchen on Instagram.

Michelle Addison

Michelle Addison is a corporate attorney turned serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and exited two companies. She has created Allergood to address a problem she faces daily as a mom of 3 kids with food allergies and someone that developed an adult-onset anaphylactic allergy herself.

After spending a decade as a food allergy advocate and community builder, she created Allergood, a B2B software solution that is revolutionizing how people dine
outside of their homes. Allergood creates digital interactive menus that automatically filter for the top 10 allergens and dietary preferences like vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian.

In turn, Allergood provides key consumer data to companies so they can use it for menu optimization and new product development. Allergood is currently available in North Carolina with plans to scale nationally in 2023.

Claire Baker

Claire joined the Beyond Celiac staff in July 2014 with 20 years of non-profit management experience. When she was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2010, Claire shifted her career path in order to improve the lives of others who live with this serious genetic autoimmune disease. In addition to leading the marketing, communications and PR initiatives of Beyond Celiac, she also manages the GREAT Gluten-Free Kitchens training program.

Prior to joining Beyond Celiac, Claire served as Director of Gardening Programs for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS). She managed the PHS City Harvest program and led community engagement and greening teams focused on gardening education, parks revitalization, youth environmental stewardship, Pop Up Gardens and more. Claire formerly served as Director of Operations and Interim Executive Director of the Metropolitan AIDS Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA), Executive Director of the William Way LGBT Community Center, and Manager of Off-Air Civic Engagement Activities and Events for WHYY Public Radio and Television

Kevin Boyd

Bio coming soon.

Chelsea Champagne

Chelsea obtained a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics and Nutrition from the University of New Hampshire. She went on to complete her Dietetic Internship and Master of Science in Nutrition at Russell Sage College in New York. Chelsea currently works as a District Dietitian covering 13 universities in the state of Maine. Chelsea supports students with food allergies, intolerances, and other dietary restrictions to ensure they have a safe dining experience while on campus.

Betsy Craig

Betsy Craig is the nation’s leading expert on food allergies, menu labeling, and certifying products and facilities as free from food allergens.  As CEO and founder of MenuTrinfo®, LLC, she and her team are dedicated to helping foodservice operators protect lives and health every day. 

MenuTrinfo’s crew is responsible for menu nutritional information affecting over 100K restaurants, allergy training for hundreds of thousands throughout the US and Canada with well over 1,000 colleges and Universities using her ANAB accredited program, and recently providing product transparency to today’s food allergic consumer through ISO 17065 certification of spaces and products.

Emily Kaufman

Emily Kaufman founded Emport LLC in 2011 with the motto More Safe Food, More Happy People. Although originally focused on launching the GlutenTox line of rapid tests, she has since expanded Emport’s catalog to include rapid tests for additional allergens and other food safety concerns. As someone with a restricted diet herself, she takes great pride in helping to ensure consumer safety.

Jasmine Hagan

Jasmine has over 20 years of experience within the food service, food testing, and food manufacturing industries.  She graduated from the College of Charleston with a degree in Biology and concentration in Chemistry and Biochemistry.  Her experience includes quality and production roles at food testing laboratories and leading the quality program for a third-party gluten free certification organization. 

In her current role, Jasmine is responsible for quality assurance of all product categories to ensure compliance with First Watch standards.  She leads the supplier QA, recall and product quality complaint program, and audits manufacturing and distribution facilities.  She also leads the nutrition and allergen programs for all First Watch brands.  

Jasmine enjoys working cross-functionally with key departments to create new programs, improve and streamline existing processes and ensure First Watch Restaurants can operate with ease. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time on the water with her family and is currently pursuing one of her passions by obtaining a professional credential in sustainability.

Joni Huang

Joni joined Food Allergy Canada in 2019 to oversee educational programming and drive the healthcare strategy with the goal of increasing the understanding and support of food allergy. Prior to joining the team, she worked with us for more than 10 years to deliver on educational initiatives as a consultant, manage national education programs and services as Director of Programs, and create the children’s newsletter as volunteer editor.

She also helped to lead the development of key food allergy and anaphylaxis resources for schools, childcare settings, and the community. Her previous work experience includes marketing positions in the technology and healthcare sectors. She has an MBA from Boston College and a BA in economics from Boston University. Joni also has a personal interest in living well with food allergy – her eldest son has multiple food allergies.

Dr. Stefano Luccioli

Dr. Stefano Luccioli is a medical officer specializing in allergy/immunology who is currently the Allergen Coordinator in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He is also on the clinical teaching faculty at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

His responsibilities include assisting and coordinating FDA activities and scientific policies to manage food allergens in regulated food products and providing subject matter expertise on health hazards and other risk assessments. His research interests are aimed at understanding the epidemiology of consumer adverse events to food allergens and assessing the health impact of allergen thresholds.

Dr. Luccioli completed his medical school and residency training in internal medicine at Georgetown University medical school and his fellowship in allergy & immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Maeve McInnis

McInnis, originally from Cape Neddick, ME and a current resident of Portland, earned a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management with a specialization in Food & the Environment from The New School in New York where she conducted her thesis at the NYC Mayor’s Office for Food Policy. She sits on the boards of the Portland Food Council and the Maine Grain Alliance. Her passion for social justice, local food systems, and the environment make her the perfect person to lead this effort to serve more local food at a Sodexo sites throughout Maine.

Erica Nehrling

Erica Nehrling, MS, RDN received her M.S. in Nutritional Sciences from University of Illinois, her B.S. in Dietetics from University of Georgia, and is an active member of NACAS and NACUFS. Erica was the Administrative Dietitian for University of Illinois Dining Services from 2013-2018 prior to moving to industry to work with Touchwork for the last four years. Erica has presented at national and regional
conferences for NACAS, NACUFS (National Association of College and University Foodservice), FNCE (Food & Nutrition Conference and Expo), FASI (Food Allergy Symposium for Industry), and EB (Experimental Biology).

Erica has enjoyed bringing an additional perspective to the Touchwork team and
is passionate about using Touchwork’s solutions to gather student feedback and data to improve auxiliary services’ customer experience as well as provide a niche solution for students with food allergies. In her spare time, Erica enjoys hiking, caving, and anything in the great outdoors.

Jaymin Patel

Jaymin Patel is the Food Safety Director for Aramark.  He supports all food service operations across Aramark’s varying business sectors in the US.  Jaymin started his career at the local Health Dept. level as an environmental health specialist. He also spent time as the Global Director for Food Safety at CKE Restaurant Holdings for a number of years before joining Aramark in his current role.

Beatrice Povolo

Beatrice joined Food Allergy Canada in 2007 following her long-standing role as the Chair of the Toronto Anaphylaxis Education Group. As a parent of a teenager with food allergy, Beatrice understands the issues faced by families and the allergy community in safely managing this condition on a daily basis.

Her dedication and passion to help create more supportive and safer environments, continues to inspire her to advocate for this community. Beatrice is the project lead on many allergy-related initiatives at both a local and national level, including food labelling, foodservice, airline travel, government relations and media.

She graduated from the University of Toronto, with an Honours BA in political science and economics. Beatrice is also an active volunteer in her school community in the Greater Toronto Area, where she lives with her husband and three children.

Dr. Girdhari Sharma

Dr. Girdhari Sharma received his Ph.D. in Food and Nutrition from Florida State University. He is currently a Staff Fellow in the Immunobiology Branch, Division of Virulence Mechanisms, in the Office of Applied Research and Safety Assessment, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Sharma has over a decade of experience in the development and validation of immunoassays for food allergens and gluten detection.

Dr. Sharma’s current work includes optimizing sampling plans by studying food allergens and gluten distribution in a sample and sampling associated errors in efforts to make informed decisions. In addition, Dr. Sharma’s research has also investigated the impact of food processing on allergen and gluten quantitation, and efforts to minimize their cross-contact in foods.

Dr. Sharma has co-authored 25 research articles in peer reviewed journals and his work has been presented at several national and international meetings. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Food Science and serves on the AOAC Expert Review Panel for gluten detection methods.

Mary Vargas

Mary Vargas is a partner with the litigation firm Stein & Vargas, LLP based in Washington, DC, where she handles nationwide impact litigation on behalf of individuals with disabilities, including individuals with food allergies, Celiac Disease, and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity.

Vargas has won key victories in federal district and appellate courts throughout the United States on behalf of individuals with disabilities. She was awarded the 2017 FARE Vision Award for food allergy activism, the 2016 Eagle Award for groundbreaking disability rights litigation related to the representation of a deaf medical student, and the 2010 Advocacy for Persons with Pain Award.

Vargas is a 1998 Skadden Fellow and a 1994 Truman Scholar. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law and the College of New Jersey. Vargas is the mother of three boys, one of whom has food allergies and Celiac Disease.

Beth Winthrop

Beth Winthrop is a registered dietitian specializing in food allergy safety on college and independent school campuses. Beth is also currently a faculty member for the University of Rhode Island.  Beth spent nearly 36 years with Sodexo after completing her BS at Cornell, and MS and dietetic internship at Tufts.  For the first 25 years, Beth specialized in clinical nutrition management, supervising clinical and patient meal service in a 900 bed, 3-hospital system.  Beth also first developed and directed the Sodexo dietetic internship program in Southeastern Massachusetts.  After being promoted to national wellness director for Sodexo’s University division, Beth developed the Simple Servings and My Zone allergy-safe offers, and trained staff in over one hundred locations, using the AllertrainU and Allertrain Lite programs.  Beth also worked with Betsy to develop Allertrain Entity to meet the needs of colleges deploying stock epinephrine.  Beth was happy to be welcomed to MenuTrinfo by Betsy when she retired from Sodexo, and finds it very interesting to work with self-operated colleges, as well as other contractors.  Beth has two granddaughters who are the apple of her eye, and also enjoys gardening, “court tennis” and her new puppy.