The Department of Food Science and Nutrition creates and shares knowledge to ensure a safe, healthy, and appealing food supply that supports the well-being and prosperity of people and the environment. The Department creates an environment welcoming of all cultural backgrounds and fosters an organizational culture of collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship, and shared leadership. As food, health and well-being have a central place in all communities, we hold ourselves accountable to creating an academic environment that both reflects and contributes to our 21st century pluralistic society. In accordance with our history as an 1862 Land-grant university, we continue to create an environment of teaching, research and outreach that serves all communities and stakeholders with respect and dignity.
The integration of food science and nutrition provides an exceptional opportunity for the Department to capitalize on the intersection of health, food culture, dietary habits, food experience, and food production. The Department plays a unique and important role training professionals and providing service in the fields of nutrition, dietetics, and food science. Faculty members in the Department are nationally and internationally recognized scholars in a wide range of nutrition and food science areas including nutrition and health, diet-based disease prevention, community nutrition, food safety and microbiology, food chemistry, food flavor and sensory studies, and food processing.
The Department employs 20 tenure/tenure track faculty members and about 30 professional staff members. Current enrollments include over 270 undergraduate majors and around 100 masters and doctoral students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. Undergraduate programs include an ACEND-accredited DPD program and an IFT-approved food science program. Graduate programs include a Master’s of Professional Studies (MPS) in Dietetics. The department hosts an ACEND-accredited Dietetic Internship with concentrations in Medical Nutrition Therapy, in association with MHealth Fairview and in Eating Disorders, in association with The Emily Program. The department furthermore hosts the J.J. Warthesen Food Processing Center, and the Sensory and Plant Protein Innovation centers. The Department has a history of collaboration with other units with emphasis in nutrition and/or healthcare such as the School of Public Health, the School of Medicine, the Center for Interprofessional Health, the Healthy Foods Healthy Lives Institute,, the Hormel Institute, and the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. For more information about faculty members, programs, and curriculum, see: http://fscn.cfans.umn.edu/