Nanna Meyer

Associate Professor in Health Sciences, University of Colorado (UCCs)

Nanna is Associate Professor in Health Sciences at the University of Colorado (UCCS). Nanna founded the UCCS Sport Nutrition Graduate Program. She has worked in Olympic sport nutrition for 20 years, supporting US athletes at 5 Olympic games, while helping to found professional sport nutrition organizations nationally and internationally.

As the world’s urgency to address climate change and health is rising, Nanna’s time is now devoted to localizing the Rocky Mountain region’s food systems with its multitude of challenges and opportunities when addressing food through health and sustainability. Between 2013 and 2014, Nanna was instrumental in helping UCCS transition its food system from corporate to self-operation, opening the doors for endless opportunities in research and education.

With a team of graduate students, Nanna links farmers to engaged eaters, using local food literacy concepts of UCCS’s Sustainability, Wellness and Learning (SWELL) initiative, Food Next Door, UCCS’s own Farm-to-Cafeteria program, and the mobile Flying Carrot Food Literacy project.

In 2016 UCCS launched Grain School in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance with the goal of regionalizing heritage grain production throughout the Western and Southwestern mountain states. Nanna integrates grain literacy in all aspects of this emerging grain chain and supports the needed infrastructures, grain research projects, and collaborations among farmers, millers, bakers, brewers, chefs and eaters through council, educational programs, photo journalism, and grant solicitations. Nanna’s personal grain chain dates back to her Swiss inheritance and the early successful ski racing career she attributes, at least in part, to the power of nutrition she gained from the unstoppable consumption of ancient and heritage grains!