The medical students who make up our board help to keep current Tulane medical students engaged in teaching kitchen activities. They help spread the word about opportunities for students to get involved and assist in scheduling medical student volunteers for our community cooking classes. They plan and staff community outreach events as well as student outreach cooking classes and parties throughout the year. They help manage our kids programming and assist with social media. We couldn’t do what we do without their help!
2020-2021 Board Members
James Marsh
President
Email: jmarsh2@tulane.edu
James is a rising second-year MD/MPH student. His interests include health policy, exploring New Orleans, and reading a good book. He loves to cook all sorts of food including sweet potato chili, veggie omelets, and stir fry. As an undergrad at Tulane, James volunteered with the Teaching Kitchen community cooking classes and saw the benefits of learning strategies for affordable, healthy eating. As the TK Board president, James hopes to enhance enthusiasm among medical students for sharing these strategies with their future patients.
Timothy Chen
Treasurer
Email: schen40@tulane.edu
Danielle Haidari
Community Outreach
Email: dhaidari@tulane.edu
Food has always been a big part of my life. I grew up in Santa Barbara, CA, and learned French dishes from my mom and Cajun dishes from my dad. I now really enjoy cooking Middle Eastern dishes with my husband, who is from Afghanistan. I am excited to be on the TK board to learn more about nutrition alongside our New Orleans community, and to share my love of food and cooking!
Michael DeBakey
Community Outreach
Email: mdebakey@tulane.edu
About me: I love traveling, cooking, and eating. I joined the TK board because I want to learn more about the crossover of diet and medicine, and convey that knowledge to my community and in the future, my patients, in a fun and delicious way.
Charles Shirley
Service Learning Coordinator
Email: cshirley1@tulane.edu
The science of nutrition has implications in both disease prevention and quality of life concerns – especially for patients with chronic conditions. Unfortunately, I think that fact is far too often underappreciated in clinical settings. I decided to get involved with the TK student board so that I could encourage more people to volunteer, which, I hope, will help students become better health educators in the future.
Jaya Mehta
Kids Programming
Email: jmehta1@tulane.edu
What we eat is so important for our minds and bodies and I wanted to find a way to help people understand how they can eat well and enjoy it and help reduce the risk of developing lifestyle diseases/living with them better (and the TK does that and A LOT more)
Autumn Robinson
Secretary/Social Media
Email: arobinson1@tulane.edu
I wanted to join the teaching kitchen because as a New Orleans native I have a passionate relationship with food and believe that eating healthy doesn’t have to be painful or expensive. It should be a treatment plan we can put all patients on.
Theresa Bui
Secretary/Social Media
Email: tbui6@tulane.edu
Why I wanted to be on teaching kitchen board: Food is one of my biggest loves of life! I love eating, trying out new places to eat, and cooking. I’m also really passionate about community health and the intersection between food and health. Being on the Teaching Kitchen board gives me the opportunity to combine all of these interests in an educational, impactful way.
