PATRICIA M. GUENTHER, PhD, RD portrait
  • Research Professor, Nutrition & Integrative Physiology
  • Adjunct Professor, Biomedical Informatics

Research Summary

My research interests center on improving dietary assessment methods by using interdisciplinary approaches.

Education

  • PhD, Nutritional Sciences, University of Maryland at College Park. Project: Beverages in the Diets of American Teenagers
  • Master of Science, MS, Nutrition - Public Health Emphasis, Case Western Reserve University
  • Bachelor of Science, BS, Nutrition, Case Western Reserve University

Biography

Dr. Guenther is a Research Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, College of Health, University of Utah. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, School of Medicine. From 2003 to 2013, she was a nutritionist at the US Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, where she led the 2005 and 2010 revisions of the Healthy Eating Index and conducted other research related to dietary assessment and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Earlier Dr. Guenther was employed by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, where her work focused on developing improved methods for collecting and analyzing dietary survey data. Dr. Guenther received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in nutrition from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed an internship in clinical dietetics at the University of Michigan Medical Center. Dr. Guenther is a registered dietitian and served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics from 2004 to 2021.

Advisory Boards

Scientific Advisory Board member, Onlife Health, a health coaching company, 2010 - 2017

Advisory Panel member, Kaiser Permanente Research, for an NHLIB planning grant to establish standard portion sizes for food served away from home, 2020

Invited participant. Best Brains Exchange, hosted by Health Canada, on “Developing a tool to measure adherence to Canada’s new Food Guide,” March 12, 2020, Ottawa, Canada.