Alumni Spotlight: Diane Meehan, MS, RD

This '99 alumna takes a particularly nutritious bite out of the Big Apple.

Diane Meehan, MS, RD, is enjoying all the exciting elements of life that New York City offers: a wonderfully diverse population, incredible restaurants, spectacular theater productions, and fascinating encounters with things like essential fatty acids and leptin.

While the latter may not find its way onto most people's lists of the top 10 things to enjoy in New York, it's one of the reasons Diane is having the time of her life. As the bionutritionist for the hospital at Rockefeller University (New York City), the oldest research institution in the U.S., Diane is enthusiastically applying her nutritional knowledge and driving curiosity to the study of dietary nutrients, such as essential fatty acids, exotic enzymes and natural antioxidants like the above-mentioned leptin.

"I love the work I do," says the 42-year-old registered dietitian, who designs diets for medical research. "Several investigators are interested in the effects of diet on various aspects of health, so I create a diet based on the needs of the study."

She especially enjoys the challenges investigators throw at her ― "for instance, they'll say 'design a diet low in calcium, low in folate and high in fat that's easy to prepare and tastes good.'" She also appreciates the person-to-person contact with research subjects. "I enjoy encouraging them and helping them understand they're an important part of the team."

While weighing out foods to a tenth of a gram may seem like a far cry from Diane's early dreams of becoming an actress, it's not far from her ongoing passion for science and the thrill of discovery. "While I was studying performing arts at a community college in Albany [Oregon], I was also taking calculus as an elective. It was great."

Although she received an associate's degree in performing arts, she decided she needed something more practical to sustain her financially. She went to Oregon State to get a bachelor's in food systems management and dietetics. After graduating in '88, she joined the Peace Corps and soon after found herself working as a nutritionist in Jamaica.

A year-and-a-half later, she returned to the States and joined a community theater company in Corvallis. But her science-hungry brain still clamored to be fed, so she once again left the stage to answer the call of science. In 1992, she moved to Seattle to work as a dietary health technician at the VA Hospital. It was during this time that Diane went from what she describes as being outwardly directed to being inwardly directed. "I wanted to know, 'What is my journey about?'"

This change in focus led her to join a class on hands-on energy work. There she learned from a classmate about Bastyr University. "I visited the campus, and it energized me. I've been an explorer all along, and I felt at home in this tight knit community of healers and genuinely nice people who were open to exploring new things." She enrolled in Bastyr's master's program in nutrition.

From 1996 to 1999, she attended the university, soaking up knowledge and an ambiance she found inspirational. "I was amazed at how much science I got in my classes," she says. "And for the first time, I learned how nutrition and biochemistry really work." She also discovered at Bastyr a way to blend her creativity with her adventurous spirit and love for science and math. "The whole creative process was celebrated at Bastyr," she says. "It was OK to say, 'Let's explore what we have here; let's look at new things in new ways.'"

Diane continues to look at new things in new ways, whether as one of only two dietitians in the Rockefeller University Hospital or as a "new" New Yorker immersed in all the delights the Big Apple offers, including, of course, lots of time on and off Broadway.

"I can see myself living here for a long time," she says, in reference to her future plans. "Ultimately, I would love to work in nutrition research internationally with New York as a base. What a dream job that would be!"