Mary Abbott Hess, LHD, MS, RDN, LDN, FAND is a nationally recognized expert in food and nutrition communications. She is also president of Chicago-based Hess & Hunt Nutrition Communications, Inc., which has provided consulting services to the food and health industries for forty years.

Mary has served as national chairman of The American Institute of Wine & Food and is a former president of The American Dietetic Association, now the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Mary has published and spoken extensively on the influence of flavor on eating behavior and the importance of portion control.

She is frequently interviewed by print and electronic media, is a popular speaker at meetings of national organizations, and has been invited to testify before several congressional committees. Mary is author of nine books and has received many awards from academic and professional organizations for community service and leadership.

Catharine Powers is a leading culinary dietitian and co-author of the textbook, Essentials of Nutrition for Chefs, the IACP 2011 cookbook winner for the Health and Special Diet category. She also is the co-author of Portion Photos of Popular Foods and Recipe Nutrient Analysis: best practices for calculation and chemical analysis.

Cathy is a trainer with the Institute of Child Nutrition and was project manager for their award-winning training program, “Cooks for Kids” and was project coordinator for the revision of their online course, “Culinary Techniques for Healthy School Meals”.

Cathy spent nearly 15 years at the world’s most prominent culinary education facility, The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) where she was instrumental in developing the Institute’s cutting-edge nutrition program. She is currently chair of the CIA’s Healthy Kids Collaborative.