Sustainable Diets Specialist Group Committee:
Chair - Tanya Haffner
Tanya is an Irish born, UK trained dietitian. Tanya’s mission is to support organisations and professionals to help individuals to eat well. She is founder and CEO of Nutrilicious Communications and MyNutriWeb.com. Nutrilicious is dedicated to empowering businesses and organisations to move the dial on health, nutrition and sustainability. MyNutriWeb.com supports and empowers all professionals with learning opportunities in food with nutrition matters. Tanya was one of the originators of BDA's OBD and on the OBD working group. She believes that all Dietitians can help with healthy sustainable eating wherever they work and is leading a new strategy with the BDA Sustainable Diets Group to help unleash the Dietetic Professions impact on sustainable eating.
LinkedIn: Tanya Haffner
Secretary - Emily Latoy
- Emily is a dietitian with a special interest in the social determinants of health and making sustainable diets achievable for all. She hold a Master's in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and currently works for Guy's and St Thomas' as a PCN Senior Specialist Dietitian.
LinkedIn: Emily Latoy
Treasurer - Beth Rougier
Beth is an NHS dietitian working in Bristol and freelancer with a special interest in plant-based nutrition. She is treasurer of the BDA Sustainable diets group.
(Also I’ve got one of those difficult to spell surnames! It’s Rougier. I pronounce it rouge-i-er.)
Events Officer - Natasha Guildford
Natasha graduated from the University of Plymouth in 2011 and currently works as a Specialist Hepatopancreaticobiliary (HPB) Dietitian at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. She is Chairperson of the BDA South East Branch committee where she was also the Treasurer for 4 years. She became vegetarian in 2015 for the reason of sustainability and is keen to implement sustainable living into her Dietetic practice too.
Research Officer - Rosie Martin
Rosie is a zoologist turned registered dietitian. Her roles currently include Employee Health & Wellness Dietitian for her local NHS trust, and founder of Rosemary Nutrition & Dietetics. Rosie specialises in supporting dietary change for human, planetary and animal health and has worked as a consultant for several plant-based organisations and businesses. Rosie also sits on the advisory board for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK.
Sponsorship Officer - Paula Hallam
Paula is a Specialist Paediatric Dietitian and the founder of Plant Based Kids, supporting families and children to “eat more plants”. Paula has held many different paediatric roles within the NHS including Great Ormond Street Hospital, Evelina Children’s Hospital and most recently at King’s College London as part of the world-renowned allergy research team that was responsible for the LEAP study (learning early about peanuts), which has informed infant feeding guidelines around the world. Paula currently runs a freelance paediatric nutrition practice, supporting families of children with food allergies, presenting weaning workshops, working with food brands and promoting plant-based eating for children and families. Paula became vegetarian 3 years ago after being inspired by her daughter changing her diet.
PR Officer - Louise Kirkham
Louise is a registered dietitian working in Cardiff, with a catering background. She is a rotational dietitian within the acute setting.
Louise is determined to find ways of bringing sustainability within practice, whether this is being a Sustainable Champion, developing student projects, completing a Fellowship in Sustainability in Quality Improvement and continuing upskilling her sustainable skills. She is passionate about sharing knowledge and experiences, and celebrating individuals successess in Sustainable actions.
Instagram: lkirkhamrd
Social Media Officer - Gizem Acar
Gizem is a dietitian and a PhD student at UCL School of Pharmacy, funded by UK Food Systems CDT. She has completed her MSc in Clinical and Public Health Nutrition. She is very passionate about health promotion through nutrition education, and she’s a youth ambassador of the European Cancer Leagues. Her research interests include dietary interventions for better health outcomes, sustainable healthy diets, designing nutrition toolkits and improving nutrition services in primary healthcare settings.
Twitter: Dyt_GizemAcar
Social Media Officer - Marta Buczkowska
Marta is a newly-registered dietitian, who just graduated from Newcastle University. She participated in numerous projects promoting sustainable diet and was a part of the advisory committee aiming to develop recommendations on how to embed the concept of environmental sustainability within the AHP curricula across the UK universities. She also has experience with the hospital catering sector, where she was involved in designing strategies aimed at aiding the company to achieve the NHS Net Zero targets. She is very passionate about raising awareness regarding the influence of the current food systems on our planet and promoting the benefits of plant-based diets.
LinkedIn: Marta Buczkowska
Resource Officer - Ruth Chalke
Ruth has worked across a variety of specialisms including Upper GI Surgery, and is currently a Prescribing Support Dietitian for South East London. She is passionate about sustainability and incorporating it into practice, and she co-leads the Guy's and St Thomas' Dietetic Department Green Team.
LinkedIn: RuthChalke
Resource Officer - Rosa Holt
The food and farming dietitian. Rosa is a registered dietitian fascinated by nutritional science and agroecology. She sees this as the driving force for meaningful change to achieve sustainable dietary diversity, enhance biodiversity, mitigate climate change and improve public health. She focuses on nutritional quality, provenance and environmental sustainability to create positive change.
Web Editor - Claire Lynch
After starting out as a nurse and then raising her family, Claire undertook a career change and qualified as a dietitian. She has worked within the NHS as a community dietitian and a diabetes specialist dietitian. Claire is also a Board-Certified Lifestyle Medicine Professional. Claire's roles currently include Education Lead for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, and founder of plant:life nutrition, her freelance dietetic practice. Claireis focused on empowering people with the knowledge and skills needed to begin transforming their health, and the health of our planet, through positive diet and lifestyle changes. She is becoming increasingly committed to advocating for changes at the highest levels of leadership to empower individual change.
Webpage: plant:life nutrition
Web Editor (student) - Mel Nolan
Recognising how our food system affects the environment is not only an important opportunity to reduce climate change, but a tool to tackle the epidemic of lifestyle diseases in the UK. As I have learned after relentlessly studying nutrition over the past four years, food that is best for our bodies, is also best for our planet.
I am passionate about sustainable diets and am eager to help embed sustainability across dietetic practice and beyond. My recent MSc in Exercise and Nutrition was laser focused on plant-based diets and how they can benefit a wide range of individuals from athletes to those with lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes.
Currently, I am a postgraduate student in Nutrition and Dietetics. Sustainable diets are the reason I am becoming a dietitian.
LinkedIn: Mel Nolan
Ordinary Member- Stela Chervenkova
Stela is a clinical lead dietitian at Oviva, a behaviour change digital provider. Stela believe that the dietetic profession should be leading the way in guiding people in making the right choices to promote planetary health. She has experience in the NHS, community and inpatient settings and believes there are opportunities to improve on sustainability in all those areas to drive positive change.
Instagram: stelacherrd
Twitter: stela_89
Ordinary Member - Damon Nicholls
My name is Damon Nicholls and I am currently working as a Senior Specialist Dietitian combating malnutrition and promoting health and wellbeing in the community setting in London. I have worked in various NHS dietetic specialties including ITU, PN, Stroke, HIV, and Staff Wellbeing and Health Promotion. I have also worked in the charity sector creating an HIV dietetic service at The Food Chain.
I have joined the BDA Sustainable Diets Group as I believe Dietitians have a crucial part to play in helping protect our world. I believe by educating our patients and service users and influencing their food choices we can reduce the carbon footprint and environmental burden of food and agriculture.