Hobbies & Interests

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I enjoy cooking and trying new foods.  I love to host dinner parties and cook for others.  I also enjoy cake decorating, snowboarding, food photography. Painting and Arts and Crafts are my favorite stress reliever.  Most of all, I love to travel, experience adventures, and I love to smile.

My Story

Food has been a passion for my entire life.  My career dreams started at a young age in a southern kitchen.  When I was 3 years old I started working in the kitchen helping crack eggs, dumping flour into a bowl, and mixing batters. My mom loved to teach me how to bake and enjoyed passing down what she had learned from her mom.  Growing up, my Nana and I would spend hours exploring our Portuguese heritage through cooking.  The kitchen was my safe haven. 

 

I was a competitive three sport athlete up through high school, playing soccer, basketball, and track.  Nutrition was an important aspect of my athletic career.  A great experience I had that has helped prepare me for my career was training under Claudine Pepin, the daughter of world renowned French Chef Jaque Pepin. Additionally, when I was in high school I had started a cake business where I designed, sculpted, and decorated cakes based on the preference of the buyer.  This business escalated quickly and I was offered a job as a baker and gluten free and vegan recipe developer.  Simultaneously, I worked as a line cook in an assisted living home.  This gave me an aspect of the clinical side because I worked with elderly clients who had many dietary needs or restrictions. As my college career approached I knew I wanted to do something with food.

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My enrollment at Johnson and Wales University prepared me for this career because it has provided me with a great background of food-service management in addition to my line cook job at Atria Assisted Living and Retirement home.  Some of my strongest strengths are creativity, leadership, work ethic and reliability.  I have always been an artistic and visual person.  I had a great opportunity of designing and educating nutritional cooking demonstrations for the elderly. One of my favorite classes at University of Rhode Island was a nutrition education class where we put to use these skills in the community, creating bulletin boards, videos, and an entire workshop that was geared toward educating elementary students about nutrition.  All of these skills have set me up for strong successful applicant for any job opportunity.

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I worked as a Dining Room Manager at 22 Bowen’s of Newport Harbor Corporation, a multi-million dollar company.  This job gave me a lot of responsibility, especially at such a young age. My leadership skills improved greatly from this job and are continuously improving.

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My Grandfather was formerly the Chief of Surgery of Newport Hospital, R.I.  He was always teaching me and my 16 other cousins all about medicine; drenching us in his knowledge.  He was always the first person I called whenever I had a question about my science classes. The recent passing of my Grandfather whom I was very close with has motivated me even more to become a successful future R.D. I am a very driven, well-rounded candidate for any job presented to me.  I have thrived through a rigorous dietetic internship,  and I am looking forward to enhancing my education and career as a dietitian. 

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I love to travel and be adventurous.  This past year, I had the opportunity to go skydiving in Key West, Florida.  It was the most thrilling, eye-opening thing I've done thus far. Additionally, my best friend was in the Peace Corps, and was stationed in Panama last year.  So, I had the amazing experience of making the trip to Panama to explore such a beautiful country. 

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My short term goal is over the next few years to work in a clinical setting to allow myself to continue to learn and increase my skills as a dietitian. Further down the road, my 10 year plan is to open my own private practice combined with a teaching kitchen, meal prep service, and a gym. These goals are to honor of my Grandfather so that I too can heal people through the power of food.