Craig Appel

Craig Appel became the Executive Director of Hand in Hand Parenting in early 2015. Prior to Hand in Hand, Craig worked for 15 years at the Energy Foundation, serving as the Director of Partner Relations where he created and directed a highly successful funding partner program. In 2010, on assignment from Energy Foundation, he helped launch the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation in India.

As a volunteer, Craig has served as a trustee of the San Francisco Waldorf School since 2007, and as chair of the board from 2010-2014. He had volunteered with youth outdoor programs and enjoys coaching youth sports.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Michigan State University and a Masters of Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco. Craig lives with his wife, Kate Holcombe, and their four children in San Francisco.

Jenné Claiborne

Jenné Claiborne is a vegan personal chef, passionate cooking instructor, health coach, and the tummy behind Sweet Potato Soul––a vegan food blog. She was born in Atlanta, GA and lived there until leaving to receive a BFA in acting from Boston University. Though she no longer acts, Jenné spends a lot of time on camera sharing her love of vegan cooking and nutrition with her Youtube audience. Jenné’s passion for food was fostered as a child down South. Soul, attention, and love––magical elements introduced to her by her grandmother–– are the three main ingredients she puts in every dish she makes, no matter how simple. 

Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD
Co-Founder, The Baby Bundle App
Pediatrician, Mother and Author

“Dr. Jen is one crazy good pediatrician who is great at rearing healthy kids. I trust her in all things kid-like. She keeps it real and you can relate to her just like her patients and parents do. She is the Dr. Mom to many.” – Dr. Mehmet Oz

“Dr. Jen is one crazy good pediatrician who is great at rearing healthy kids. I trust her in all things kid-like. She keeps it real and you can relate to her just like her patients and parents do. She is the Dr. Mom to many.” – Dr. Mehmet Oz

Pediatrician Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD – known to her patients as Dr. Jen – is a nationally renowned parenting expert, board-certified pediatrician, the co-founder of Baby Bundle App, and has maintained a successful private pediatric practice in New York City for the past 20 years. She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and mother of three children. Dr. Jen has appeared numerous times on NBC’s TODAY show, contributes regularly with health and parenting topics, including child development, childhood obesity and sleep issues to Baby Chat TV, Fatherly and RosiePope.com. She has published two parenting books, The Smart Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Kids through Check Ups, Illnesses and Accidents (2010), and Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children (2007).

Dr. Jen Trachtenberg’s mission is to maximize the potential that is within every child. Her lifework as a pediatrician and parenting expert emphasizes the importance of a child’s emotional, behavioral and physical well being, while focusing on improving social and environmental factors to reduce the risk of chronic disease in adulthood.

During her free time, Dr. Jen enjoys reading, yoga, playing with her kids outdoors, nature walks, bicycling, and swimming. She and her husband live just outside of New York City, where they are raising their three children.

Follow Dr. Jen:
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Amie Hamlin

Amie Hamlin has been the Executive Director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food since its founding in 2004. Previously she was the director of a non-profit environmental organization on Long Island and director of a tobacco-control program in Binghamton, NY. She wrote a NYS legislative resolution for healthy plant-based entrees and nutrition education in schools which passed unanimously in 2004. The Coalition was then formed in order to implement the recommendations of the resolution. The Coalition has developed recipes which have been distributed to 25,000 schools nationwide, a middle school Family and Consumer Sciences Cooking curriculum, a 3 – 5th grade curriculum called Food UnEarthed: Uncovering the Truth About Food, and nutrition education resources including Wellness Wakeup Call and Feel Good Food Cards.

SHERI-LYNN DEMARIS, M.Ed.

Sheri DeMaris knows what it’s like to be short on time and pressed for quick, healthy solutions. Over the past 30 years, she has spent nights and weekends developing from a woman with a knack for creative recipes into an authority on alternative health.

Sheri has studied macrobiotic philosophy, counseling, teaching, cooking, shiatsu massage and oriental diagnosis and is a Level 4 graduate of the Kushi Institute. She is the host, director and producer of an alternative health TV show: “Tea with Sheri”; a cooking TV pilot: “Macro for the Mainstream” and a number of cooking TV videos for children.

She is a cooking instructor for people of all ages. She has taught extensively on the east coast and has traveled throughout the United States, Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam and Japan as a cooking instructor and educator.

She was the recipient of the “Golden Carrot Award” and the McDonalds “Go Fit Award” for helping to promote healthy eating in public schools.

Her kitchen is her sanctuary and has been since she was 20 years old. Look for her new cookbook Macro Magic for Kids and Parents sold in area Whole Foods Stores and on www.cedartreebooks.com / or www.teawithsheri.com.

Laura Fuentes

Laura Fuentes is the CEO of MOMables, where she helps parents make fresh school lunches and meals food their kids will love with easy meal plans and an online fresh meal delivery business.

She’s a visionary, big picture strategist, public speaker, the Author of 3 Cookbooks spokesperson, makes regular television appearances, competed on Food Network in 2014 (and won!) and a successful entrepreneur.

She works with numerous brands on food and lifestyle campaigns, contributes recipes to print magazines, is a TODAY show and TODAY.com Food and Parenting contributor, writes for Parents.com, and has a column in the Huffington Post.

With a background on Global Economic Relations and an MBA in Business Development, Laura is also a business mentor specializing in online monetization, digital strategy, and online community building.

In her personal blog, LauraFuentes.com, she shares recipes, and inside look at her life as an entrepreneur and homeschooling mom, and much more. You can connect with Laura on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Alicia Mauldin

Alicia Mauldin is a graduate of the University of Florida and mother of three children (ages 10,11 and 13). She has been teaching yoga since 2002 and wanted to share the joys of yoga with more than her own children, and began teaching kids yoga classes in 2010. Despite her many years of experience teaching adults, teaching children was completely different – and challenging! She pursued a children’s yoga specialty and trained with YogaKids and is a Registered Children’s Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance. Her passion for YogaKids continued as she joined their corporate team in 2013 and is currently their Program Director. Alicia has a passion for teaching, training and enjoys sharing her knowledge with others. She continues to teach adult yoga classes and is a lead trainer for a  200-hour adult yoga teacher training in her area. She loves to teach YogaKids classes, especially at her daughter’s dance studio. Alicia is also a YogaKids trainer, teaching adults from many different professions how to incorporate YogaKids into their daily lives and the children with whom they interact. She likes to laugh and keep yoga fun for both adults and children – we are all children at heart and Alicia helps all of her students discover the best versions of themselves.

Lynn Frederick

Lynn Fredericks is the founder of FamilyCook Productions and an award-winning pioneer in the field of obesity prevention and family nutrition. She is the author of Cooking Time Is Family Time (Morrow 1999) and Get Your Family Eating Right! (Fair Winds Press 2013). Since 1995, the educational efforts under FamilyCook Productions have reached over 200,000 parents and children. Fredericks’ work in New York City public schools won her a 2002 Leadership Award from the New York City Council of Administrators. In 2001, she was presented with a PRIDE award for her contributions to family nutrition education in the NYC public school community. In 2006, Gourmet magazine saluted FamilyCook’s efforts to bring cooking skills to inner-city families. A leading advocate for hands-on food/nutrition education for all, Fredericks is a popular lecturer, televisionpersonality, and cooking demonstrator.

In 2013, Fredericks became a Co-Investigator for a NIH-funded research project in New York City with Einstein College of Medicine and HealthCorps. In this role she will assist the team to build on the Teen Battle Chef leadership development successes to disseminate evidence-based strategies through a range of youth-led activities that build skills for new, healthier behaviors.  Fredericks herself takes on leadership roles in several national organizations including the Food & Nutrition Section of the American Public Health Association, Society of Nutrition Education & Behavior, and The Food Systems Network NYC.  She was the founding chair of Les Dames d’Escoffier’s Green Tables Initiative and a former Board Director of the National Gardening Association.  In 2014, she conceived of a national campaign that FamilyCook is launching with support from a wide array of nutrition and health experts, leaders and organizations. 

Kids Food Reboot: Serving Our Children Better is a dynamic campaign with a positive message for parents and provides educational resources and connects parents with leading restaurants who are ‘rebooting’ kids food  – nationwide. Fredericks has served as spokesperson for brands such as Barilla Pasta, Tupperware, Reynolds® Oven Bags, and The National Pasta Association Fredericks and FamilyCook Productions’ programs have been featured on national television shows including NBC’s Today, Cooking Live, and the Food Network’s Chopped, as well as numerous local radio and television programs across the U.S. She resides in New York City.

John Kozinski

For 40 years John has taught and counseled over 40,000 people in his private Macrobiotic Family Practice and at an international natural health Institute. There he has the distinction of being the only senior faculty member with 27 years of uninterrupted employment (1986- April 2013). John resigned from this Institute in order to maintain his high ethical standards for teaching and counseling. He has trained many macrobiotic teachers and counselors working in this field today.

John has aided thousands of people in their recovery from diverse ailments such as cancer, heart disease, pre-menstrual syndrome, endometriosis, urinary tract infections, candida, chronic fatigue, diabetes, hypoglycemia, weight loss, eating disorders, digestive disorders, Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and mood disorders. Many other types of conditions have seen improvement or reversal.

John’s macrobiotic program for health is unique incorporating the best of eastern and western approaches to food, nutrition, health and healing with a contemporary interpretation. This includes his study of Chinese medicine, modern nutrition, allopathic medical approaches, Ayurveda medicine, eastern and western herbal remedies, and the energetic healing arts of Qigong/Do In and yoga. John is a shiatsu practitioner and teacher. His ongoing research and study of conventional and alternative healing modalities allows him to incorporate the best practices according to his experience and comprehensive understanding of natural health care and diagnosis.

John has appeared on television and radio. He is an author and has written numerous magazine articles on the topic of natural health and healing. John has an extensive series of macrobiotic health education CD’s and DVD’s. He maintains a teaching and counseling practice home office in Becket, Massachusetts and travels monthly to various locations in the United States including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Portland, Maine and Chicago, Illinois. He is available in the United States and internationally for natural health programs and counseling. Please contact our office for further details.

Latham Thomas

Latham Thomas is a celebrity wellness/ lifestyle maven and birth doula-  transforming not only how women give birth to their babies, but how they give rise to the best version of themselves. She is the founder of Mama Glow (MamaGlow.com) a lifestyle brand and highly regarded website offering inspiration, education, and holistic services for expectant and new mamas. A graduate of Columbia University and The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Latham serves on the advisory board of Yahoo! Health and is best-selling author of “Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy,” a go-to wellness guide for expecting mothers endorsed by Dr. Christiane Northrup, Dr Mark Hyman, Christy Turlington Burns & more.