Deanna Minich, PhD, CNS

Deanna Minich, MS, PhD, CNS, IFMCP, is a nutrition scientist, international lecturer, teacher, and author, with over 20 years of cumulative experience in academia and in the food and dietary supplement industries. Throughout the years, she has been active as a functional medicine clinician in clinical trials and in her own practice (Food & Spirit™), which has now become oriented toward groups, workshops, and retreats. She is the author of six consumer books on wellness topics, four book chapters, and 50 scientific publications. Her academic background is in nutrition science, including a Master of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1995) and a Doctorate (PhD) in Medical Sciences (nutrition focus) from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands (1999). For a decade, she was part of the research team led by the “father of functional medicine,” Dr. Jeffrey Bland, and has served on the Nutrition Advisory Board for The Institute for Functional Medicine, as well as on the board of directors for the American Nutrition Association. Since 2013, she has been part of the faculty for the Advanced Practice Module in Environmental Health offered by The Institute for Functional Medicine and has been teaching a graduate level course in metabolic detoxification at the University of Western States. Over the decades, she has taught thousands of health and nutrition-related classes for health coaches, fitness trainers, and healthcare professionals, including for programs offered by the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. In conjunction with her academic degrees and extensive teaching experience at the university level, she is both a fellow (FACN) and a certified nutrition specialist (CNS) through the American College of Nutrition. She is passionate about helping others to live well using therapeutic lifestyle changes that impact their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.