Marianna Wetherill

Marianna Wetherill

Advisor, Food is Medicine Initiative

George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Population Healthcare; Assistant Professor of Health Promotion Sciences and Family and Community Medicine

Marianna Wetherill (PhD, MPH, RDN-AP/LD) is the George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Population Healthcare and an Assistant Professor with joint appointments in the Departments Health Promotion Sciences and Family and Community Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Tulsa Schusterman Center. A native Oklahoman, Dr. Wetherill previously worked for ten years in the community setting as an administrator, developer, and evaluator for nutrition-related programs to support low-income patients living with chronic illness. Her direct practice experience includes nutrition therapy for HIV/AIDS and cardiometabolic diseases. Dr. Wetherill’s nutrition philosophy incorporates a functional medicine approach to personal healing, with a passion for improving health outcomes among vulnerable populations. Her research focuses on building healthy food access for people and communities affected by health disparities, which has allowed her to work with various types of community partners, including food banks, social service organizations, medical clinics, and tribal communities, to identify feasible and sustainable strategies for improving the nutritional status of underserved populations. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the Produce Drop Study, a randomized-control trial designed to evaluate the benefits of home-delivered fruits and vegetables and culinary medicine cooking classes on blood pressure and glucose control among patients insured by Medicaid. Dr. Wetherill is the lead dietitian for the OU Culinary Medicine Program and a founding course director for three lifestyle medicine classes required for medical and physician assistant students at the OU-TU School of Community Medicine.