June Payne-Palacio Ph.D., RD
The winner of the California Dietetic Association’s Carol Hayes Torio Award for Excellence in Management Dietetics, June Payne-Palacio has extensive recognition and experience in all areas of management dietetics. She was the Assistant Director of Institutional Administration and Residence Halls at Mills College in Oakland before moving on to commercial foodservice as the commissary manager for Host International at the Honolulu Airport. Next came hospital foodservice management, as she became the Director of Dietary Services at the Straub Clinic and Hospital in Honolulu. She also served as clinical instructor at the University of Hawaii.
After 15 years of dietetic practice and teaching, she returned to academia to complete her doctorate in Institutional Management at Kansas State University. As a consultant with Consulting Nutrition Services, Inc., she assisted with the layout and equipment selection on projects including ten state hospitals, Kaiser Permanente, the Magaram Center at Cal State Northridge, and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Palacio has served as professor at Mills College, Kapi’olani College, University of Hawaii, Kansas State University, California State University at Los Angeles, California State University at Long Beach, and Pepperdine University. In July 2008, she retired after 23 years at Pepperdine University, where she held the Flora Laney Thornton Endowed Chair in Nutritional Science and was the recipient of the Luckman Distinguished Teaching Award.
Monica Theis, M.S., RD
Monica Theis is a senior lecturer at The University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Food Science. She is a registered dietitian and specialist in Food and Food Systems Management. She began her career as an administrative dietitian at The University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and spent three years as director of food and nutrition services for a 120-bed long-term care facility before joining the faculty and staff in The Department of Food Science in 1990.
Her primary responsibility is to teach all Food and Nutrition management courses as required for the Dietetics major. This includes Foodservice Operations, a foods lab, and Organization and Management of Food and Nutrition Services. Theis also teaches courses for the Department of Food Science, including Food Law, The Social Side of Food, graduate seminar, and the department’s new initiative to expand international opportunities for undergrads.
In addition to management, she specializes in Food Systems (local to global) including farm-to-school programs and has worked with a number of local schools and healthcare organizations to identify means to implement sustainable practices within available resources. She is involved in a number of initiatives on the UW-Madison campus to support concepts of sustainability in food systems.
