AED Advisory Board

The AED Board of Directors is please to announce the development of the AED Board of Advisors. Founded in September 2006, the Advisory Board is composed of key individuals from within and outside the field of eating disorders who are interested in bringing their knowledge, influence and experience to bear on the mission of the AED and the eating disorder field by advising AED leadership and guiding important AED initiatives. (For more information on the Advisory Board, review the official AED Advisory Board Policy).

We welcome the following members of the AED Advisory Board:

 

ImageJudy Banker

Judy Banker is Past President at Academy for Eating Disorders and Founder and Executive Director at the  Center for Eating Disorders, Ann Arbor, Michigan. A respected adminstrative leader and clinician, Judy has advocated for Research-Practice integration through the AED, and also chairs the AED Patient-Carer Task Force. 


 

Donna Friedman

Donna Friedman has been actively involved in patient advocacy, during and through her recovery from anorexia nervosa.  She was most recently honored for her achievement and dedication to the field by the AED in 2011.  She co-chaired the AED Development Committee in 2010-2011.  She is presently a member of the Patient Advisory Board as well as the AED Advisory Board.  She has been a two time presenter at the International AED Conference in Salzburg in 2010. She presented at the University of Michigan, with Aimee Liu, author of Solitaire, Gaining and Restoring our Bodies, in 2007.  She spoke alongside former Miss America, Kristen Haglund, on the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital campus in 2008. She was addressed in a medical school assembly at Duke University Medical School while inpatient in 1982. She is thankfully recovered, married with 4 children. She and her family reside in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

ImageSusan Ringwood
Susan Ringwood is the chief executive officer for Beat, a not-for-profit organization devoted to beating eating disorders in the United Kingdom. After initially training as a teacher, Susan has spent 28 years working in the not-for-profit sector in regional, national and international roles. She has worked with a range of charities in the UK, including Age Concern, Community Service Volunteers, Scope and the Prince’s Trust, before joining EDA as chief executive officer in September 2002. Susan was a member of the UK National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence guideline development group for the treatment of eating disorders, and is a lay member of the NICE consideration panel for Mental Health. As an AED Member, and part of the AED Patient and Carer’s Task Force, Susan contributed to the drafting and development of the AED World Wide Charter for Action on Eating Disorders, and she remains actively involved in the global implementation of the Charter.


ImageDr. Cynthia Bulik 
Dr. Cynthia Bulik is a past president of the AED and the William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she is also professor of nutrition in the School of Public Health and the Director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program (www.unceatingdisorders.org).

Bulik has written more than 280 scientific papers and chapters on eating disorders and is author of the books Eating Disorders: Detection and Treatment (Dunmore) and Runaway Eating: The 8 Point Plan to Conquer Adult Food and Weight Obsessions (Rodale), the CD EMPOWER Solution for Healthy Weight Control (www.empower-plan.com), and a soon to be released family-based Internet program Food, Fun, and Fitness. She is a recipient of the Eating Disorders Coalition Research Award, the Hulka Innovators Award, the Academy for Eating Disorders Leadership Award for Research, and the Carolina Women’s Center Women’s Advocacy Award. She is the vice president of the Eating Disorders Coalition and is currently an associate editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders. She holds the first endowed professorship in eating disorders in the United States.

ImageAimee Liu
Aimee Liu is a best selling author of four novels and the highly acclaimed memoir Solitaire. She has co-authored seven nonfiction books and written numerous articles on medical and psychological topics. Aimee’s most recent book, Gaining: The Truth About Life after Eating Disorders was released in February, 2007. This emotionally powerful and poignant sequel to Solitaire digs deep into the root causes, cures, and consequences of anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Liu served as 2002 President of the literary organization PEN USA and currently teaches creative writing in Goddard College’s Port Townsend, Wash., MFA Writing Program and through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. For more information about Liu, visit her Web site at www.aimeeliu.net.


ImageKarine Berthou
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life , the whole aim and end of human existence
Aristotle

Karine Berthou is the founder of KBFF, a financial company. After studying Art and completing a PhD in Egyptology in Paris, Karine trained to work within the financial services industry — initially as a broker and then a trader. In 2002, Karine moved to London having setup Cube Financial — a brokerage firm with offices in Chicago and London that was acquired during the early part of 2006 by Fimat, part of Société Générale. She spent the next few years completing the acquisition and integration process of the two companies and in early 2008 left to pursue an interest in establishing a philanthropic foundation.Working closely with the Institute of Philanthropy in London, Karine has been engaged in The Philanthropy Workshop, a series of intensive training modules that teach critical elements of international and strategic philanthropy. As part of this training, Karine has been traveling around the world meeting with eating disorders sufferers and treatment, advocacy, and research professionals to better understand the current needs and conditions within the field.

Having suffered from bulimia nervosa for nearly nine years Karine seeks to turn her personal struggle in to action that can benefit others with eating disorders. “If I am able to help and connect with one young girl, to help her realize that she is worth more than what she weighs — then all of my struggles in my life will be worth it.” The focus of her philanthropic work in the field of eating disorders is to develop and support treatments, programs and processes that address the fear, guilt, and self-hatred that can underlie eating disorders in order to bring about long term and substantive change in the quality of life, self-concept, level of self-acceptance, and overall well-being and life satisfaction of those suffering from eating disorders. Her passion for reading and travel have brought her in to contact with many types of people. “I am always amazed at how different each person is. Even though two people may experience the same event, their way of dealing with it can be so vastly different!” Her goal is to help people with eating disorders accept their differences, their strengths and weaknesses, and to celebrate and achieve their own goals.