UA’s Garner Named to Top Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Post

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Margaret P. Garner, associate professor in The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences, has been named director-at-large for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, formerly the American Dietetic Association.

The Academy has over 72,000 members and is the world’s largest professional organization of food and nutrition specialists.   Garner will serve a three-year term that will begin this June.

At UA, Garner is an associate professor of family medicine and assistant dean for health education and outreach in CCHS. She is also the director of the department of health promotion and wellness at the Student Health Center, director of nutrition and education services for the University Medical Center, and an adjunct assistant professor in the department of human nutrition and hospitality management’s coordinated dietetics program.

Garner helped establish and was the first chair of the Alabama Food and Nutrition Exposition, a unique partnership of the Alabama Dietetic Association, Alabama Dietary Managers Association and Alabama School Nutrition Association.

In 2011, she received the academy’s highest honor, the Marjorie Hulsizer Copher Award. Garner has served in leadership roles in the academy, including as a member of the board of directors and commission on dietetic registration. She was a member and chair of the academy’s legislative and public policy committee, political action committee, coding and coverage committee, council on education and strategic planning task force.

Garner is a past president of the Tuscaloosa District Dietetic Association and the Alabama Dietetic Association. A graduate of Georgia Southern College, Garner received a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and completed a postgraduate fellowship in the area of nutrition and developmental disorders at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine’s Child Development Center in Memphis.