SPOON Foundation – Staff
Cindy R. Kaplan, MS / Executive Director
Mishelle Rudzinski, MA, CCC-SLP / Progam Director
Brita Johnson / Operations and Outreach Director
Zeina Makhoul, PhD, RD / Nutrition Assessment Specialist
Kate Nelson Ward, MPH, CHES / Instructional Designer
Jason O'Leary / Administrative Coordinator
Saida Kereyeva, MsC / SPOON Foundation Central Asia, Kazakhstan Country Manager
SPOON Foundation – Executive Board Members
SPOON Foundation – Medical Advisory Board Members
SPOON Foundation – International Advisory Board Members
Cynthia Barrigan, RN, MPH
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Ms. Barrigan is a clinician, technologist and public health professional with fifteen years of experience developing and managing health sector IT programs—with a specific focus on military health and rural remote health systems. She currently serves as the Portfolio Manager for Global Health Programs at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC)—an organization within the US Army Medical Research & Material Command, Fort Detrick. In her current role, she manages Military Health IT research and development programs—with a special emphasis on use of mobile phones to support field medical research, disease surveillance, medical logistics and health outreach, training and education. The scope of her responsibilities also includes the development of strategic research partnerships, collaborations with other USG agencies, academia and non-governmental organizations, and the convening of special events to advance important Health IT topics. Cynthia and her husband Jim adopted their son Maks from Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2007.
Julian Davies, MD
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Julian is the co-director of the Center for Adoption Medicine at the University of Washington. He is also the editor of www.adoptmed.org, an online resource for medical and developmental issues in adoption. His interest in adoption comes from his years clowning, teaching children's theater, and leading summer camps with groups of Moscow orphans. In his clinical practice, he has an interest in integrative and nutritional approaches to neuro-developmental issues.
Jeff Erlich, MA
SPOON Foundation Executive Board and International Advisory Board
Jeff Erlich is a consultant specializing in the nonprofit sector in Central Asia. In addition to working with SPOON, he is currently involved in projects to increase access to justice for vulnerable people and to help corporations improve their social investments. He is the past president of the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia. An adoptee himself, he has been a leading proponent of the deinstitutionalization of orphans in Kazakhstan. Jeff first came to Central Asia in 1998 as a Peace Corps volunteer, and has worked in all five former Soviet Central Asian republics. He lives with his wife Halida and two sons Joseph and William in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Michael Georgieff, MD
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Michael is a Professor of Pediatrics and Child Development at the University of Minnesota where he is Head of the Section of Neonatology in the Department of Pediatrics, and Director of the Center on Neurobehavioral Development. He is a renowned expert on early nutrition and the brain having served on the Committee on Nutrition and the Breastfeeding Work Group for the American Academy of Pediatrics and on the Nutrition Study Section for the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the American Pediatric Society and the Pediatric Academic Societies. He has written over 120 articles and book chapters on nutrition and brain development in the newborn and early childhood period, and is a contributing author to AAP's Handbook on Nutrition. His research focuses on fetal/newborn nutrition, specifically the effect of iron nutrition on brain development and neurocognitive function. He lectures nationally and internationally on nutrition and the developing brain.
Mary Hearst, PhD, MPH
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Mary is an Associate Professor and Director of Public Health at St. Catherine's University and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Minnesota Division of Epidemiology. Since receiving her doctorate, Dr. Hearst has conducted obesity related research among children and families, with special emphasis on low-income, multi-ethnic families. Recently, she if focused on food access among the most vulnerable and the intersection between healthy nutrition and child development. Her background as an Occupational Therapist provides additional expertise with children with special health care needs, feeding practices and facilitating healthy child development.
John Himes, PhD, MPH
SPOON Foundation Executive Board & Medical Advisory Board
John is Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the School of Public Health at University of Minnesota. John serves on the Expert Panel for Nutrition for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva; on the Advisory Group on standardizing anthropometric and body composition measurements and reporting for the National Institutes of Health; and recently completed his service on the Advisory Group on the construction of growth velocity standards, Department of Nutrition and Health, WHO, Geneva. He additionally serves as a member of NIH's Kidney, Nutrition, Obesity, and Diabetes Epidemiology Study Section. He is an experienced researcher and well-published expert in the areas of physical growth and maturation of children; growth and nutrition; anthropometric assessment of nutritional status and dietary assessment.
Brita Johnson
SPOON Foundation staff — Operations and Outreach Director
Bio pending
Dana E. Johnson, MD PhD
SPOON Foundation Executive Board & Medical Advisory Board
Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Pediatrics, member of the Division of Neonatology and a faculty member in the Global Pediatrics Program at the University of Minnesota where Dr. Johnson co-founded the International Adoption Program in 1986. His research interests include the effects of early institutionalization on growth and development and the outcomes of internationally adopted children. Dr. Johnson is an invited speaker worldwide, a Senior Research Fellow in the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and has authored over 200 scholarly works. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the Joint Council for International Children’s Services, Friend of Children Award from the North American council on Adoptable Children and the Harry Holt Award from Holt International. He is a member of the Board of Directors of JCICS and Half The Sky Foundation. He is also the father of three children including an adopted son from India.
Anthony Kahn, JD
SPOON Foundation International Advisory Board
Anthony has over twenty-five years of experience in international law. He was a partner with Coudert Brothers from 1973-2004, working with offices and operations in the Western United States, Asia and Europe. His practice encompassed corporate and commercial consulting, including pharmaceutical businesses, M&A, intellectual property, real estate, financial, and related areas. Since retirement in 2004, he has been active as legal advisor and strategic consultant in U.S. and international real estate, acquisitions, alternative energy and food businesses. He also serves as Vice President of AgriPower, Inc., a manufacturer of biomass-fueled electric generators.
Cindy R. Kaplan, MS
SPOON Co-founder and Executive Director; SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Cindy has extensive experience in qualitative and quantitative research, strategic development and marketing. She has worked in strategic planning for Leo Burnett in Chicago; co-founded and sold WellNext, a corporate wellness consulting firm where she created new metrics for assessing individual and corporate wellness; and served as the first Marketing Director for a nutrition-driven food company, Enjoy Life Natural Brands, where she helped to launch a national brand and lead a multifaceted campaign to raise awareness of food-related health conditions. Cindy and her husband Tony adopted their son Jadyn from Kazakhstan in 2006, as a malnourished infant. In 2010 they returned to Kazakhstan and adopted daughter Neve.
Saida Kereyeva, MsC
SPOON Foundation Central Asia staff — Kazakhstan Country Manager
Saida is is a Country Manager of SPOON Foundation in Kazakhstan. Saida has extensive experience in the fields of Community Development programs and Human Resources Management. She has a wide network of contacts in the public and government sectors including Baby Houses and orphanages. She holds a PhD degree from the Moscow Linguistic University, and a Master’s Degree in HR Management from the Robert Gordon University.
Maria Kroupina, PhD
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Maria Kroupina is an assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Global Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Kroupina sees internationally adopted children on an outpatient basis. Current funded research includes a study on nutritional status of recently arrived internationally adopted children, and collaborative work as a co-investigator regarding recovery from early life stress in children adopted from institutions (PI: Megan Gunnar, PhD) and neurobehavioral correlates of early deprivation (PI: Megan Gunnar, PhD)
Dr. Kroupina's master's degree in clinical psychology was awarded by Moscow State University Department of Psychology (Moscow, Russia). She earned her PhD at the University of Minnesota. She has additional professional training in family systems therapy (Moscow Center for Marriage and Family Therapy), attachment disturbances (Tulane University), and the Stanley Greenspan intensive online training course in infancy and early childhood training course titled Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-based (DIR) Floortime Model. She teaches medical residents as part of the elective in adoption medicine.
Zeina Makhoul, PhD, RD
SPOON Foundation staff — Nutrition Assessment Specialist
Zeina is working with SPOON Foundation as a Nutrition Assessment Specialist to design and implement nutrition and feeding assessment tools in orphanages in several developing countries. Zeina is a Registered Dietitian and has a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Arizona with a focus on international nutrition. Her doctoral work included studies on iron deficiency and night blindness in Nepalese pregnant women and birth outcomes. She completed a four-year postdoctoral training at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA where she led several research studies investigating the role of nutrition in HIV-associated malignancies in Uganda. She also designed and implemented a nutritional assessment system at the pediatric oncology ward at Uganda Cancer Institute. She has years of experience teaching nutrition at the college level. Zeina’s interests include child and maternal nutrition, nutritional assessment and rehabilitation, nutrition education, and improving nutrition programs through operations and implementation research. Zeina is on staff with SPOON Foundation as Nutrition Assessment Specialist.
Michele Meyer
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Michele was appointed President of General Mills’ Small Planet Foods Division in June 2007. In this role, Michele is responsible for leading the marketing and business plans for Cascadian Farm, Muir Glen, Lärabar, and Food Should Taste Good – a Natural and Organic Division focused on providing “Food that Matters” to people and the Planet. Previously, Michele served as Vice President and Marketing Director in the Big G Cereal Division, as well as having spent time as VP of Cereal Partners Worldwide Global Marketing. Over her 24 year career at General Mills, Michele has enjoyed a wide breadth of assignments and led multiple marketing and sales functions across the company, including Brands on the Go, International, and a cross functional VP assignment as Head of the Merchant’s Consortium in Sales. Her teams have received four Chairman’s Awards for outstanding performance, 3 Eagles and numerous Gimmies for outstanding performance over the years. Michele grew up in Tampa, Florida. She earned a bachelor's degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Michele, her husband Rich, and their two children reside in Shorewood, MN.
Brad Miller, MD
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Brad is a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the University of Minnesota. His basic science research has focused on the growth hormone-insulin-like growth factor system that regulates growth in children. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic, he studied the role of IGF binding proteins in fracture healing, growth and the growth response to nutritional deprivation. Since joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital-Fairview, Brad has collaborated with the International Adoption Clinic in clinical study of growth recovery following early adversity related to international adoption. His growing body of research and clinical practice is focused on growth recovery and its sequelae after early adversity including nutrient deprivation, emotional deprivation and intrauterine growth retardation.
Kate Nelson Ward, MPH, CHES
SPOON Foundation staff — Instructional Designer
Kate is a certified health education specialist with a wide range of experiences in international health and chronic disease management. She has a strong background in curriculum development and qualitative research. Kate spent several years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, managing an international diabetes self-management program and collaborating on several multi-disciplinary research projects with the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health. While living in Kazakhstan from 2005-2006, Kate grew passionate about orphan welfare and ultimately became involved with SPOON in 2010 as a volunteer. Kate is an avid SCUBA diver, exercise enthusiast, and self-proclaimed foodie. She lives in Georgia with her husband and two dogs.
Jason O'Leary
SPOON Foundation staff — Administrative Coordinator
Jason has more than eleven years of experience in office administration, including six years working in non-profit organizations. Most recently he served as the Administrative Assistant for the Santa Fe Children’s Project, an initiative of the United Way of Santa Fe County that provides early intervention, education and economic development to children and families in the Santa Fe community. Prior to the United Way, he worked for two and a half years in support services and human resources at Outside In, a Portland non-profit agency serving homeless and at-risk youth. Previously he worked in non-profit administration at Free Arts for Abused Children and at the Writers Guild of America, both in Los Angeles. He holds a BFA from New York University.
John Ordway, JD
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
John is a retired U.S. Ambassador who spent 33 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, and who served as U.S. Ambassador to Armenia and Kazakhstan. His other Foreign Service assignments include eight years in Moscow, as well as Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council. Since retiring, he has had several short-term assignments temporarily heading U.S. Embassies in Europe and Asia. He is also the head of the U.S. delegation to the New START Treaty’s Bilateral Consultative Commission that meets periodically with the Russian Federation. He and his wife, Maryjo, now live in Sacramento, California.
Richard Ormond, MPP
SPOON Foundation International Advisory Board
Richard Ormond combines technical expertise with high-level program planning and administrative capabilities in international development. A skilled manager with nearly 10 years of solid field work while living overseas, he is experienced in complex project management and implementation, financial planning and oversight, operations management, and evaluation. Rich has extensive knowledge of the former Soviet Union, including appreciable time working with communities within Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. Since earning his Masters in Public Policy from Princeton University in 2004, Rich has been working for Mercy Corps; he is currently the Director of Programs for Mercy Corps Indonesia.
Paula Rabaey, MS, OTR/L
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Paula is an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN. She is currently working on her PhD in occupational therapy focusing on best practice in feeding and eating issues with young children and their families. Her clinical background includes 15 years of experience working with children with special needs primarily in early intervention. She has specialized in feeding and eating difficulties in children with a variety of diagnoses and worked with families to create a positive mealtime environment. She has participated in international service learning trips to Quito, Ecuador with OT students working with local foundations and children with special needs who have feeding difficulties. Her background as a pediatric occupational therapist includes additional expertise in the areas of seating and positioning, sensory processing, and the importance of attachment and bonding to growth and nutrition.
Zachary Rothschild, MFS
SPOON Foundation International Advisory Board
Zachary Rothschild is a Regional Affairs Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, presently on Africa and formerly on Eurasia. Previously, he worked for USAID's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, where he covered youth, education, and conflict issues. Posted to Prishtina, Kosovo, from 1999-2002, he worked for both Mercy Corps and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has also worked in the microcredit sector, where he co-conducted an impact assessment of FINCA Kyrgyzstan's program in 1999. He holds a BA in Economics from Drew University and a Masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
Katja Rowell, MD
SPOON Foundation Medical Advisory Board
Katja is a graduate of the University of Michigan medical school and served as a family physician in urban, rural, and university student health settings. During her time in practice, she was struck by the prevalence of disordered eating and feeding, and related health problems. Rowell believes establishing a healthy feeding relationship– in essence– HOW children are fed is the missing piece in addressing disordered eating, weight dysregulation and damaging dieting behaviors. Dr. Rowell works with parents to provide personalized solutions and support for feeding and weight concerns, from selective eating to food preoccupation. She has a special interest in supporting adoptive and fostering families. Her book, Love Me, Feed Me: The Adoptive Parent’s Guide to Ending the Worry About Weight, Picky Eating, Power Struggles and More is available on Amazon.com. Dr. Rowell teaches the importance of a healthy feeding relationship to health care providers, family therapists and childcare staff, and consults with corporate clients, nutrition education and public health projects.
Mishelle Rudzinski, MA, CCC-SLP
SPOON Foundation Co-founder and Program Director; SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Mishelle is a pediatric speech-language pathologist specializing in the communication and feeding of children with severe disabilities. She is currently the CEO of SwitchClimber.com, an educational company that operates an interactive website for children who cannot access typical computers. From 1999-2009, she worked at Emanuel Children's Hospital in Portland where she developed and ran an augmentative communication clinic serving nonverbal children from throughout the Northwest. Mishelle adopted her daughter Bakha at age five from Kazakhstan. She became passionate about the need for improved orphan nutrition after witnessing Bakha's dramatic recovery from debilitating rickets within weeks of receiving vitamin supplements.
Judith Shank, MD
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Judy is a retired dermatologist who has been a volunteer for numerous health care related organizations. She is a past President of the Minnesota Medical Association, Past Chairman of the Minnesota Medical Foundation, Founding Chairman of the Hennepin Health Foundation and a board member of both The Hennepin and Allina Health Systems. She was an adjunct Professor of Dermatology at the University of Minnesota. Both of her grandchildren were adopted from China. She and her husband Steve currently live in Sarasota, Florida.
Almaz Sharman, MD, PhD
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
Bio pending
David van Vuuren
SPOON Foundation Executive Board
David started his career as an engineer at artisan level and ended in a senior management role with a large mining and earthmoving equipment manufacturer in South Africa. His next eleven years was in consulting in humanitarian development from program assessment, to design, implementation, evaluation, and management of health, microfinance, relief, reconstruction, water and sanitation, and shelter programs. His principal client for the first three years was USAID in Southern Africa and he was one of the first consultants engaged by USAID when Mozambique was just opening up to Western aid. He was contracted by World Relief (WR) as a consultant in the nineties and intensely so during and after the Rwanda Genocide era. WR then employed him first as the African Regional Director, then as their Chief Operations Officer which included leading corporate-wide team to relocate WR’s then three operations under one roof in Baltimore. His last five years with WR was as their VP of International Operations. David then moved to Oregon to accept the position at Medical Teams International in Portland Oregon of VP of Administration, a department he created and managed until his resignation in 2010. Currently David is on a sabbatical while volunteering with non-profits and attending to long-neglected family business.
Beibit Yerubayev, MBA
SPOON Foundation International Advisory Board
Beibit has an extensive history of facilitating relationships and transactions between organizations in the United States and Kazakhstan. He is a resident representative of American Chamber of Commerce in Astana and serves as the lead Kazakhstan trade officer for the North Dakota Trade Department. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Foreign Commercial Service, providing market guidance, assistance and referrals to American companies interested in entering the Kazakhstan business and/or investment communities. He also served as project manager at the Kazakh Institute of Oil and Gas. Beibit received his MBA from Waynesburg University and has a keen understanding of US and Kazakhstani cultures and business practices.