Rate My Professor Amy Richards

Dr. Amy Richards serves as Associate Professor and Director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Tennessee at Martin. She earned her PhD in Nutrition, Exercise, and Food Science from South Dakota State University in 2017, with a dissertation on the relationship of stress, sleep, physical activity, and food insecurity on eating behaviors and obesity. Richards also holds an MS in Family and Consumer Sciences with an emphasis in nutrition from South Dakota State University (2004), a Dietetic Internship from the University of South Dakota (2004), and dual BS degrees in Business Administration and Art from Montana State University (1990). Her career history includes roles as a registered dietitian for the South Dakota Department of Education, where she served as Team Nutrition Coordinator providing training to schools and childcare centers; instructor and dietetic internship director at the University of South Dakota; registered dietitian for interdisciplinary pediatric development clinics; and overseer of menus for the Head Start Program in Vermillion, South Dakota. At UT Martin, she teaches multiple undergraduate and graduate nutrition courses and leads the undergraduate dietetics program.

Richards specializes in dietetics with research interests encompassing obesity prevention in pediatric and adult populations, the role of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals in disease prevention, plant-based diets and health outcomes, food safety for fruit and vegetable production, and nutrition for maximizing human performance. Key publications include Richards AL, Johnson R. "Reduction in Emotional and Uncontrolled Eating Scores with Yoga Compared to Stretching: A Randomized Trial." Altern Ther Health Med (2025); Richards AL, Specker B. "Exploring relationships of eating and physical activity behaviors with sleep behaviors among adult weight loss participants." Top Clin Nutr 35(1):50–61 (2020); and Richards A, Kattelmann K, Ren C. "Motivating 18 to 24 year olds to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 106(9):1405-1411 (2006). She has delivered invited presentations such as "Utilizing Plant-Based Diets to Improve Diabetes Outcomes" for the Indian Health Services (2023) and "What to Eat to Maximize Brain Health and Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease" at the UT Martin Nutrition Symposium (2024). Awards include the Outstanding Researcher Award from the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences (2025), Fall Faculty Scholar at UT Martin (2023), Bill and Wilma Smith Faculty Development Award (2019), Bachtel/Holbrook National Collegiate Advisor Award from Phi Upsilon Omicron (2019), and Outstanding Educator Award from the Tennessee Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (2019). Richards advises the Beta Sigma chapter of Phi Upsilon Omicron and holds leadership positions in professional organizations including the West TN Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.