Marsha Spence is a professor of practice and director of the Public Health Nutrition Graduate Program and is a registered dietitian/nutritionist and community nutrition researcher with a focus on healthy nutrition and physical activity environments for pediatric and maternal populations; improving food and nutrition security among mothers, children, adolescents, young adults and their families; leadership development; positive youth development; and parent engagement in nutrition and physical activity education programs for youth. Professor Spence, who is a first generation college graduate, was a funded MCH leadership trainee during her master and doctoral programs at the University of Tennessee. The training program provided Professor Spence with numerous opportunities to explore her leadership and professional potential and developed her passion for strengthening the MCH workforce, promoting healthy environments, and decreasing hunger, especially among the MCH population in Appalachia and the Southeast.

Professor Spence is an active leader in local, state, and national associations and agencies, including serving as past president of the Association of Graduate Programs in Public Health Nutrition; past chair, section councilor, and governing councilor of the American Public Health Association’s Food and Nutrition Section; national advisory committee member for Georgetown University’s Embedding Cultural Diversity and Cultural and Linguistic Competence: A Guide for UCEDD Curricula and Training Activities; and a past board member for Our Daily Bread of Tennessee. Currently, she serves as a steering committee member for the Association of State Public Health Nutritionists’ Farm to Early Care and Education. The president of the East Tennessee Childhood Obesity Coalition, and as a board member for the Greater Knoxville American Heart Association.