The ELA Team

Co-Founders

Dawn Hynes, CEO

Dawn Hynes, MSW, is CEO and Co-Founder for Eating for Life Alliance, and a member of the Junior Board of the Eating Disorders Coalition.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis.  Dawn is a passionate advocate dedicated to making eating disorder treatment accessible to more people and providing practitioners with state of the art training and resources.  For the past decade, Dawn has been active in eating disorder recovery work as an advocate, clinician, and volunteer.  She has trained staff, developed clinical manuals, and worked with groups and individuals at Boston Children’s Hospital and Laurel Hill Inn’s Residential Treatment Program.  As a volunteer, she has helped over 100 families in her community find resources and treatment referrals, created and distributed comprehensive eating disorder manuals to hundreds of organizations and individuals, and worked with a team of clinicians helping celebrities from NY and LA connect to treatment. Dawn also has an extensive background in domestic violence: her most recent position was that of Director of the Health Center Domestic Violence Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  In this field, she developed best practices and standards, created and delivered trainings for providers, and helped raise over one million dollars.

Whitney Post, President

Whitney Ladd Post, MA, is President and Co-Founder for Eating for Life Alliance.  She is a graduate from Brown University and holds a masters degree in counseling psychology from Leslie University.  Over the past ten years, Whitney has run hundreds of groups helping women develop healthier relationships with their bodies.  As a clinician, she has designed or implemented eating disorder treatment programs at the Cambridge Eating Disorder Center, Walden Behavioral Care, and Arbour Health Systems. As a consultant, she has provided wellness trainings, workshops, and individual coaching to National team athletes, as well as to area colleges, including Harvard University, Williams College, Boston University, and Wellesley College.  She served for four years as the Director of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s GoGirlGo! Boston, an organization focused on improving the physical and emotional health of girls through physical activity and sports.  During her tenure in this position, GoGirlGo! Boston raised over a million dollars in foundation and government funding, distributed over $500,000 in grants, helped over 8,000 girls become physically active, and provided educational materials to over 20,000 Boston girls. Based on her own experience as a four-time National team rower, World Champion, and alternate for the Sydney Olympics, she specializes in athletes and eating disorder recovery, and contributes to national publications on the topic.

 

Advisory Council

Dr. Kate Ackerman

Kate Ackerman, MD, MPH is an internist, sports medicine specialist, and endocrinologist at Children's Hospital Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  She graduated from Cornell University magna cum laude, majoring in government and biology.  She obtained her medical degree from Johns Hopkins and her masters in public health from Harvard. Currently her clinic is based at Children's, where she sees athletes of all ages with musculoskeletal issues, general medical issues, and especially endocrine problems, such as female athlete triad (disordered eating, low bone mass, and menstrual irregularities) and diabetes.  Her research is largely based at MGH, where she is studying female athletes and various treatments and links to female athlete triad.  She is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a former national team rower, and a current team physician for US Rowing and Community Rowing, Inc. She is also an affiliated team physician for various high schools and colleges in Boston, the Boston Ballet, and the Boston Marathon.

Dr. Carolyn Becker

Dr. Carolyn Black Becker is a Professor of Psychology at Trinity University in San Antonio. She also is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment and prevention of eating disorders. The primary focus of Dr. Becker’s teaching, research, and clinical work is the implementation of scientifically supported prevention and treatment interventions in clinical and real world settings. Dr. Becker also serves as the scientific and clinical director of Tri Delta’s Reflections: Body Image Program and co-author of the program manual, which was published by Oxford University Press. The NIMH has funded her research on the prevention of eating disorders with female athletes. Dr. Becker is a member of the Eating Disorder Research Society and a Fellow of the Academy of Eating Disorders (AED). In 2009, she and Tri Delta were joint recipients of the AED’s Research-Practice Partnership Award for their work in disseminating evidence-based eating disorders prevention programming. Dr. Becker also was the 2009 recipient of the Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Prevention and Awareness.

Dr. Sherrie Delinsky

Dr. Sherrie Delinsky received her BA in Psychology from Yale University, summa cum laude, and her MS and PhD degrees in Clinical Psychology from Rutgers University.  She specializes in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of eating and weight disorders, body image disturbance, anxiety disorders, and depression. She has presented her original research and received industry awards at the national and international level (APA, International Conference on Eating Disorders, and the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies). Her teaching experience includes undergraduate psychology at Rutgers University, psychiatry didactics at Massachusetts General Hospital, and continuing medical education for professionals.  She has published articles in scientific journals and book chapters for the past twelve years, and is a reviewer for numerous scholarly publications.  Dr. Delinsky currently works as a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice in Wellesley, MA, and is also an Instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Robyn Hussa

Robyn Hussa has been working for several years with families, patients, educators and medical professionals first-hand, in an effort to educate them about our nation's epidemic of eating disorders and obesity.  She is a nationally recognized educator and leader in the field of eating disorders as Founder and President of the NORMAL In Schools nonprofit, for whom she creates award-winning arts and mindfulness programs to educate about eating disorders and mental health.  She holds an MFA from the University of Virginia, RYT with Yoga Alliance and is a member of both the Academy for Eating Disorders and the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals.

Susan A. Miele

Susan Miele has an expansive background in building talent-management strategies and practices. Susan has held numerous executive Human Resources positions in Boston and worked as a Senior Partner at Camden Consulting Group helping build the talent management practice.  In recent years, Susan has expanded her passion for non-profit work through her membership on the Board of Strong Women Strong Girls. She also plays an active role in her community as a member of the Executive Board of the Parent Teacher Association and the advisor to the town’s Girl Talk program. Susan is currently pursuing a PhD in human and organization systems with a concentration in social change and entrepreneurship from Fielding University.  Susan will be working with ELA on program and organizational development.  She will be guiding ELA in building collaborations with organizations having an aligned mission and goals, enabling ELA to accelerate its growth and success.

Dr. Margaret Ross

Dr. Margaret Ross is the Director of Behavioral Medicine at Boston University Student Health Services. She was an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College, where she graduated magna cum laude in biology, and then from Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Ross trained in pediatrics (MGH) and then psychiatry (McLean), and did her last year of residency as a fellow at Harvard University Health Services. She then worked at MIT from 1979 until 2002 as a psychiatrist, patient advocate, and administrative director of Health Education. From 2002 until 2007, Dr. Ross was Associate Director of the Adult Outpatient Department at Cambridge Health Alliance, specializing in women's mental health issues and eating disorders. Dr. Ross has held her current position since July 2007.

 

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