Nutrition, Health, and Safety for Young Children

About our authors Joanne Sorte, MS, has worked in the fields of child development and early childhood education for more than 45 years. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Child Development and Family Life and a Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Sciences from Oregon State University. Her early experiences included working as a home visitor-teacher, directing and teaching a community college preschool program and serving as family services coordinator for Head Start. She then joined the faculty at Oregon State University as Senior Instructor and director of OSU's Child Development Laboratory Preschool. In this role she developed course curriculum and supervised evaluation of undergraduate practicum student teachers, mentored graduate teaching assistants and facilitated research investigations. Joanne designed a blended model preschool program which provided enrollment opportunities for children from tuition paying families, those placed by Early Childhood Special Education and Oregon's Head Start Prekindergarten Program. She administered grant funded special projects including the lab school's OHSPk and Child and Adult Care Food Program contracts. Under her guidance the Lab Preschool achieved and maintained NAEYC accreditation and attained the highest "star" rating for Oregon's Quality Rating Improvement System. She worked with partners from local high schools, community colleges and universities to develop an articulation agreement for practicum coursework and has presented at the conferences of the NAEYC, Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children and National Head Start Association. She has participated on state and community initiatives and boards focused on services to children and families, child abuse prevention and child protective services.

Inge Daeschel is a licensed and registered dietitian whose area of expertise is pediatric nutrition. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Foods and Nutrition Science at Plattsburgh State University in New York. She completed her dietetic internship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and received her Master of Science degree in Nutrition Science from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She worked at Duke University Medical Center, first as pediatric dietitian clinician and later as assistant chief clinical dietitian. This position was instrumental in developing her interest in helping families understand the nutritional needs of their children.

She and her family relocated to Oregon, where she worked at the Corvallis Clinic. Later she accepted a faculty position as an instructor for the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University where she was Health and Nutrition Services Coordinator of the OSU Child Development Laboratory and the OSU Oregon Head Start Prekindergarten Program. Currently Inge is retired although she continues to provide nutrition consultation services to an area WIC program. Her expertise in feeding children is based on personal as well as professional experience that she gained from raising 4 children, including 1 with multiple food allergies. She has coauthored with Joanne Sorte an intervention program called "Health in Action: 5 Steps to Good Health," which promotes wellness by providing focused messages that address nutrition and physical activity in early childhood programs.

Carolina Amador, MD, MPH, is a board-certified general pediatrician. She received a Bachelor of Education degree in Speech Pathology at the University of Georgia in Athens. She earned her medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and completed her residency in pediatrics at West Virginia University in Morgantown. She worked as Chief Resident in Pediatrics at West Virginia University, where she developed a lactation clinic as well as a focus on advocacy for breast-feeding mothers. She has a master's degree in Public Health from the University of Washington in Seattle with a focus on maternal and child health. She moved with her husband to Corvallis, Oregon, and has worked as a general pediatrician for 17 years. She is currently employed by a community health center that serves a large percentage of Hispanics and migrant workers. During these years as a general pediatrician, she has developed professional interests in childhood obesity prevention, health disparities and Latino health. She has been involved in community events and organizations advocating for children's health, including the Oregon State University Oregon Head Start Prekindergarten Program Health Services Advisory Committee, the Benton County Healthy Weight and Lifestyle Coalition, the Benton County Oral Health Coalition and the Breastfeeding Coalition of Benton County. Throughout her years of education and medical practice, she has participated in several international health experiences in Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda and Malawi.

Lauren Au, PhD, RDN, is a nutrition and public health researcher. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her Master of Science degree in Nutrition and Public Health and completed her dietetic internship at Columbia University. Dr. Au received her Doctor of Philosophy in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts University. She then completed an American Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology Congressional Fellowship in the U.S. Senate. After working on Capitol Hill, Dr. Au completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, she is an Associate Researcher at the University of California's Nutrition Policy Institute. Dr. Au has experience in conducting nutrition evaluations to prevent obesity in low-income community settings. Notably her research in WIC includes a rigorous assessment of online vs. in-person nutrition education; creating a novel diet quality measure for infants and evaluating the contribution of WIC foods to overall nutrient intake.