Invited Speakers

Invited plenary speakers will address health trends, emerging health issues and the factors influencing the health status of our nation and the world. Planned topics include health effects of global warming, addressing new immigrant communities and their health challenges, health disparities among youth, baby-boomers & care giving -- the health of the sandwich generation, and motivation for eating healthy.

Lenora R. Campbell, RN, DSN

Interim Associate Dean, Professor and Berth L. Shelton Endowed Chairperson
Division of Nursing, Winston-Salem State University Session Title: "The Health of Intergenerational Families: Creating a Win-Win for Grandparents and Grandchildren."

About Dr. Campbell:

Dr. Lenora Campbell is Professor and Berth L. Shelton Endowed Chair in the Division of Nursing at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). She has served as Principal Investigator for many national projects, including the Center for Innovations in Health Care Disparities, funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research and the Office of Minority Health.

Dr. Campbell has conducted research on child health issues, breast cancer, parenting and caregiver issues and mental health. She has lectured extensively on child health issues, especially children who become orphans as a result of HIV/AIDS and other health and social issues. She has published in refereed journals and textbooks. She is the Director of the Grandparenting Program, funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The program is designed to assist grandparents and other relative caregivers.

George Luber, PhD

Associate Director for Global Climate Change, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
Session Topic: Health effects of global warming

About Dr. Luber:

Dr. George Luber is an epidemiologist and the Acting Associate Director for Global Climate Change for the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His research interests include the epidemiology of harmful algal blooms and the health effects of climate change. Most recently, his work has focused on the epidemiology and prevention of heat-related illness and death, the development of municipal heat response plans, and the application of remote sensing techniques to modeling vulnerability to heat stress in urban environments. In addition to his leadership role in the Global Climate Change Workgroup at CDC, Dr. Luber is a co-chair of the Human Contributions and Responses/Decision Support Interagency Work Group for the US Climate Change Science Program.

Julie Miller Jones, PhD

Professor of Food Safety and Nutrition, College of St. Catherine
Session Title: "Fruits, Dried Fruits and Whole Grains - Just for the Health of It."
Dr. Jones' participation is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Raisin Board.

About Dr. Jones:

Julie Jones, a board certified and Licensed Nutritionist, received her BS degree from Iowa State University and her Ph.D. in Home Economics / Food Science and Nutrition from the University of Minnesota. Currently she is professor of nutrition in the Department of Family, Consumer and Nutritional Sciences at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. She has twice been named St. Catherine's outstanding professor and was awarded The Myser Award by the alumnae as a professor who made a difference in people's lives'. She held the 3M Endowed Chair in Science from 2000 to 2003 and is a co-leader in the Centers of Excellence for the Center for Women Science and Technology.

She authored Food Safety (Eagen Press) and edited a book Dietary Fibre: Food and Feed and Bio-active Ingredients. She is very interested in all aspects of nutrition science but is especially interested in whole grains and food-based solutions such as the DASH diet and "5-A-Day". She regularly writes and speaks about whole grains and dietary fiber, sugars, starch including resistant starch, the glycemic index, fat, vitamins and antioxidants; food safety issues such as microbial safety, irradiation, pesticides; and issues affecting women such as dieting and body image.

She is a frequent speaker for many professional conferences and consumer organizations, locally, nationally and internationally at conferences such as the International Cereal Congress held in Vienna in July 2005, Dietary Fibre 2006 in Helsinki and the ILSI Glycemic Response workshop in Nice December 2006. She is part several speaker's bureau and as part of that speaks to health professionals around the country. She has co-organized two conferences on whole grains with the most recent one being the Whole Grains Summit held in May 2005 and is working on one to be held in 2008.

She is actively involved in trying to educate the consumer against frauds and myths in nutrition and food safety. To that end she has appeared on radio and TV shows in many cities in the United States has answered hundreds of consumer letters in the FIXIT column of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune.

She has been active in many professional organizations. For the national American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC)- International, she is past-President and Chair of the Board of the national organization and has served in many capacities both nationally and locally. Currently she heads the Whole Grains Task Force and the Glycemic Carbohydrate Definition Committee. She has been awarded the highest award of the AACC, the Geddes Award in 2004 and named the Twin Cities Home Economist of the Year in 2006. In 2005 and 2007, she served as a judge for the GrupoBimbo prize for the best nutrition paper.

She is a scientific advisor for the EU Platform on Whole Grains, Carbohydrates and Dietary Fibre, the Joint Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition for the University of Maryland and the US Food and Drug Administration, the carbohydrate committee of the International Life Sciences Institute, Grains Food Foundation and Chartwell, which advises about school lunch. She spoke at the Codex Alimentarius pre-meeting in November 2007 on the definition of dietary fiber.

Karen Stobbe

Improvisational actress, writer, caregiver and Project Director of In the Moment, a training program for caregivers
Session Topic: Creative approaches to Alzheimer's, dementia, caregiving and aging issues.

About Ms. Stobbe:

Karen was working as an actress, director, writer and instructor of theatre when her Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Her life has taken on a new focus and new meaning in combining the knowledge of her two worlds into one life work.

For 8 years Karen was the Healing Arts Director of Milwaukee Public Theatre, a non-profit outreach arts company, where she oversaw art programs related to the healing process in all its forms. Karen has developed a 6-week training program called In the Moment (www.in-themoment.com), which uses creativity, improvisation and theatre as training tools. Karen has performed over 500 trainings in storytelling, improvisation, caring for persons with Alzheimer's and the importance of laughter. Her trainings have included: The Pioneer Network, University of California-San Diego, Life Services Network, The Ministry of Health in Canada, Alzheimer's Foundation of America, RUSH Hospital, and a 4-hour post conference intensive at the National Alzheimer's Conference.