Executive Committee

Clare Hicks, RDN

Past Chair

Clare Hicks, RDN is a Product Manager at Safe & Reliable Healthcare and she enjoys working with product development teams to solve real world problems. She graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and completed her dietetic internship at California State University, Fresno. In 2018 she completed the AMIA 10x10 course at UT Health, focused on healthcare interface design and usability. Clare started her career with 6 years of clinical practice at Adventist Health. During a software implementation project at the hospital where she worked, she was inspired by how technology solutions could be applied to optimize healthcare. This led to a career focused on healthcare technology including roles in software implementation and product management at Intellihealth and The CBORD Group, Inc. She lives in Oregon with her husband and their dogs.

Christine Manta, RD

Chair-Elect

Christine currently serves as head of customer experience at HumanFirst, formerly Elektra Labs. Christine was the first full time employee at HumanFirst and has had a variety of roles in research, sales and product over the past 3 years.  Prior to joining HumanFirst, she supported the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative's (CTTI) systematic review of feasibility studies using mobile technologies in clinical research. Christine has a background in research serving as a clinical coordinator and research associate at Christiana Care's Value Institute, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. There, she led research and evaluation projects across a variety of implementation science and patient safety initiatives, publishing several papers as first author.  Christine received her master's in nutrition from University of Pittsburgh and completed a clinically focused internship in acute and long term care settings

Sarah Kruse, PhD, RD

Secretary

Sarah L Klammer Kruse, PhD, RDN graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato with a BS in Computer Science and in Dietetics. She received her MS in Nutrition from Texas Woman’s University, and PhD in Organization and Management from Capella University. Her career has included experiences in healthcare, information technology, administration, and academia. Skills and knowledge gained as a clinical dietitian, food service manager, health center CEO, and professor have influenced her passion for health IT and nutrition informatics. She is a Professor, Department Chairperson in the Computer Information Science Department, and the Health Informatics & Analytics Program Director, at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Carolyn A Silzle, MBA, MS, RD, FAND

Treasurer

Grace Jones, RD

Academy House of Delegates Representative

Grace Jones is the Solutions Architect for The CBORD Group which means she acts as the technical pre sales subject matter expert for CBORD’s acute and long-term care diet office software. This means she regularly interacts with dietitians in hospitals across the country to make sure CBORD understands their needs for their patient nutrition software and presents technology to meet those needs. Before that, she was on the implementation team training customers how to use Nutrition Service Suite.

Grace received her BS in Nutrition and Dietetics from Northwest Missouri State University.

Leslye Rauth, MPH, RDN, CDE, LMNT, FAND

Nominating Committee Chair

Leslye Rauth, MPH, RDN, CDE, FAND is a Clinical Informaticist, currently working with the Indian Health Services of the Great Plains on several projects related to nutrition documentation to improve data quality and patient outcomes. Leslye obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, completed an AP4 dietetic internship at the University of South Dakota, and received a master’s in public health degree in 2012. She is actively involved with the Dietetic Practice Groups (DPG) of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Leslye has served in several elected and appointed board positions including past treasurer, nominating committee chair and professional development chair for the Public Health/Community Nutrition DPG. 

Ashley Ratliff, LD, RD, CNSC

Nominating Committee Chair-Elect

Rebecca Pitman, MS, RD

Policy and Advocacy Leader

Rebecca serves as a Nutrition Informatics Analyst with a Contracted Food Service Company and works on a patient meal ordering software, ensuring interface functionality is accurate and all potential workflows are tested prior to implementing the app. 

Kaitlyn Loefstedt, RD

Diversity Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) Liaison

Kaitlyn Loefstedt is a RD Program Coordinator with the North Carolina Orange County Health Department. In her role, Kaitlyn coordinates daily operations of the DSME and DPP programs including recruitment, monitoring client status, data management, appointment/classes and medical record follow-up for educators. She completed her dietetic internship at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina and recently earned her Master’s of Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill. Kaitlyn is dedicated to understanding and addressing complex public health nutrition problems through the development of equity-centered solutions. She is very excited to serve as the NI Diversity and Inclusion Liaison for the 2022-2023 year. 

Amy Wootton, RD

Academy Interoperability and Standards Committee (ISC) Liaison

Amy Wootton, RDN, with over 20 years of experience in clinical and foodservice nutrition management for acute and long-term post-acute care. Nutrition informatics has been a driving factor in career leadership success. Amy has been the Director of Nutrition Management at MatrixCare for the past 4 years working closely with both the clinical product electronic health record line as well as dietary software solution, MealTracker. As a key subject matter expert, Amy introduced integrations and feature enhancements to the development team to incorporate nutrition standards of practice.

Amy is an active member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, was appointed Chair of the Interoperability and Standards Committee, executive member of the newly formed Nutrition Informatics DPG, and contributed to the Academy's Nutrition Care Process Toolkit Workgroup. Amy accepted a Leadership Award from the Florida Academy of Dietetics in 2017. Most recently participated in a joint effort article with the Academy and Aspen co-authoring Consensus Recommendations for Optimization of Electronic Health Records for Nutrition Care.

Amy is a dedicated leader and is passionate about the success of nutrition interventions as an electronic solution to the healthcare crisis.