Gastro Girl Podcast

Dr. Tiffany Taft

Dr. Taft is a licensed clinical psychologist and is director of adult behavioral medicine. She has specialty training in health psychology and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Dr. Taft is a leading expert on the psychological and social aspects of chronic digestive illnesses including IBS, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Eosinophilic GI Diseases. She has over 10 years of extensive experience working with people with chronic illness and has published several articles and three book chapters on the psychological aspects of these conditions.

Dr. Taft is a Research Assistant Professor and Director of Psychogastroenterology Research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine where she has researched the psychosocial issues people living with chronic digestive conditions face since 2004. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship within the Center for Psychosocial Research in GI at NU. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in 2009 after completing a 1-year internship at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago.

Dr. Taft has spoken at both professional and patient education conferences across the United States including Digestive Disease Week, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation Congress and Illinois Patient Education Conference, the CURED Foundation, and the Oley Foundation.

Her approach to therapy is to teach clients to be their own therapists and learn skills that will last a lifetime so they can better self-manage issues that come with having a chronic illness. Dr. Taft is certified in medical hypnotherapy.

Amber Tresca

Amber Tresca is an IBD patient (diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 1989) who has been writing and editing patient-facing content for the IBD community since 2000 both for major online outlets and on her own site, AboutIBD.com. After 10 years of active disease, medical therapy failed and she underwent the 2 step j-pouch surgery (removal of the large intestine and creation of an internal pouch from the last part of the small intestine). In 2017, she began the About IBD Podcast to educate people living with IBD about their disease and to bring awareness to the patient journey. She founded the nonprofit IBDMoms with Brooke Abbott of The Crazy Creole Mommy Chronicles to support moms who are touched by an IBD. She currently works as a speaker, facilitator, and advocate for people with IBD as well as a freelance writer and editor for medical web sites and publications.

@aboutIBD on twitter
About IBD Podcast: Where to Listen

Jacqueline Gaulin

Jacqueline Gaulin is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Gastro Girl, Inc. and GI OnDEMAND LLC. Gastro Girl is a patient-centric health company that empowers patients to achieve optimal digestive health. Leveraging the latest technologies and its partnership with The American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), Gastro Girl’s mission is to bring GI stakeholders together to provide patients the help they need when and how they need it.

Since 2016 Gastro Girl has served as the ACG’s official patient education partner. Gastro Girl and ACG expanded this partnership in 2019 to bring GI OnDEMAND to market as gastroenterology’s virtual care and support platform to reach the approximately 70 million individuals in the United States that suffer from digestive symptoms, disorders, and diseases

Jacqueline is the visionary behind Gastro Girl and GI OnDEMAND, driven by her passion for helping individuals with digestive health issues and the role the gastrointestinal tract has on overall health and wellness. She is a certified health coach and was previously the Director of Communications and Digital Engagement for the American College of Gastroenterology.

She has over 20 years of combined experience in online media and community development, journalism and media relations–particularly in the healthcare industry. As a student of the early stage start-up, she has had a role in building several online sites and communities from the ground up, including Revolution Health, where she created and managed the digestive health center and a large online community for patients.

During her time with the ACG, she led media relations efforts and played a major role in bringing the ACG into the digital age by developing, advancing and executing the College’s digital communications strategy, which includes the ACG blog; an online community for the College’s 15,000 clinician members, condition-specific online communities (IBD, Hepatitis and Functional GI Health and Nutrition), as well as the College’s social media presence. She significantly increased visibility and awareness for the ACG, the College’s physician experts, the latest clinical science published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology; and for serious health issues such as colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and disorders of the brain-gut axis, and groundbreaking science such as the role of fecal microbiota transplantation in treating serious GI conditions. She received an BA in Political Science from Wheaton College, Norton Massachusetts and an MA in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University. She received her health coach certification from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.