Escott-Stump begins term as ADA president
ECU professor Sylvia A. Escott-Stump began her one-year term June 1 as the 2011-12 president of the American Dietetic Association. She has served as president-elect since June 2010.
“The American Dietetic Association is a respected organization with an ambitious strategic plan. Acting together, we have accomplished much. Our potential to be center stage in policy debates and the provision of health care in our country has never been greater,” Escott-Stump said.
Sylvia Escott-Stump
“As an ADA member for more than 35 years, it is an honor to serve the Association and its nearly 72,000 members. We are facing an era of health reform. With increased public awareness of the role of nutrition in disease prevention and helping people live longer, healthier lives, now is an amazing time to be a registered dietitian and an ADA member. Sincerely, this profession brings tremendous personal and professional rewards,” she said.
“Working with my colleagues and the ADA Board of Directors, my goal is to guide ADA in the coming year toward our mission of improving the nation’s health and advancing the profession of dietetics.”
Escott-Stump has directed the dietetic internship and didactic program at ECU since 1998. She is also the owner of the consulting firm Nutritional Balance. She speaks internationally and consults with private practice physicians, groups, long-term care facilities, businesses and educational organizations. She is an internationally known author of textbooks including seven editions of Nutrition and Diagnosis-Related Care (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2011) and five editions of Krause’s Food and Nutrition Therapy (Elsevier, Fall 2011).
Previously, Escott-Stump worked in Pittsburgh, Pa., as the director of dietetic services at Forbes Health System; director of the dietetic internship and clinical nutrition manager at Shadyside Hospital; a consulting dietitian at Wexford House Nursing Center; and associate director of nutrition services and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children for the Family Health Council of Western Pennsylvania.
Within the American Dietetic Association, Escott-Stump has served as speaker of the House of Delegates; chair of the Standardized Language Task Force; a House of Delegates director; chair of the Council on Professional Issues; first chair of the Issues Management Committee; a member of the Alliance Task Force; and a member of the Association Positions, Quality Management, Legislative and Public Policy, Strategic Planning, External Governance and Finance committees.
Escott-Stump is a past president of the Pennsylvania Dietetic Association and a former treasurer of the North Carolina Dietetic Association. She is also former chair of the Clinical Nutrition Management dietetic practice group and a member of the Dietetic Educators of Practitioners, Food and Culinary, Dietitians in Health Care Consultation, Healthy Aging, Dietitians in Nutrition Support, and Dietitians in Integrative Medicine dietetic practice groups.
She has a degree in nutrition from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned a master’s degree in adult/community education and received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Her honors include ADA’s Medallion Award, the North Carolina Dietetic Association’s Member of the Year and Pennsylvania’s Outstanding Dietitian. She also received ADA’s first Margene Wagstaff Fellowship for Innovation in Dietetics Education and gave ADA’s Lenna Frances Cooper Award Lecture in 2008.
Escott-Stump lives in Winterville, N.C., with her husband Russ. She is the mother of Matthew and Lindsay, both students at East Carolina University.
Escott-Stump is ADA’s 86th president. For more information on the American Dietetic Association, visit www.eatright.org.
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