Hi! I’m Laura, licensed and registered dietitian and toddler mom.  

I was born in a small town in New York and spent the first ten years of my life there before my parents moved us to South Florida to be closer to our family. Growing up in an italian american household, it was all about family. Weekdays were spent riding bikes over to our cousin’s house and weekends were spent out in the garden with my grandmother, learning how to grow vegetables and later, how to cook them. “Just a splash of olive oil, four perfectly sliced cloves of garlic, and simmer over medium heat.” If I close my eyes, I can vividly remember the cooking classes that would take place in my grandmother’s tiny, scorchingly hot New York kitchen. 

It’s no surprise that I grew up loving food- going to the store to purchase it, cooking it, and eating it. I spent hours in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes and forcing everyone in my house to try my new creations. I always thought food would be nothing more than a hobby of mine, as my career goal was to become a physician.  

After high school, I attended the University of Miami where I received a Bachelor of Science in biology. My plan was to take a year “off” after graduation to study for the MCAT and get a Master’s Degree. My journey took me back to New York, when I was accepted into New York University’s Master of Public Health program. Upon looking at the course catalog, I decided my public health focus would be nutrition. Food Science 101 and Food Management? Sign me up! After two weeks in the program, medical school was a distant memory and I was officially on the road to becoming a registered dietitian.  

I’ll never forget the call to my parents, “a what? What’s a dietitian? Can you even get a job doing that?” I ended up completing the didactic program in dietetics at New York University and returned to my alma mater to complete a Master of Public Health at the University of Miami and a Master of Science in Dietetics and Nutrition at Florida International University.  

Throughout my graduate studies and after I completed internship rotations in a hospital setting, a long term acute care facility, a residential eating disorder center, and my favorite of all- a nonprofit organization that provided services to underprivileged, pregnant women. Clinical and long term acute care? Interesting, but not my passion. I found myself so excited to go to work with my eating disorder patients and expectant mothers.  

Once I completed the dietetic internship, I decided to start a practice. After 5 years of being in practice and having seen many clients with different nutritional goals and needs, I decided to work in the fields which I’m most passionate about- prenatal nutrition and eating disorders.

Source: https://www.newleafboca.com/team