Emina primarily grew up in Fort Worth, Texas after her mother immigrated in 1999 from Bosnia, a small Eastern European country. She received her undergraduate degree in Nutrition from Texas Women’s University in 2015. After college, she began working in healthcare as an outpatient dietitian. She worked as an RD providing nutrition counseling to patients with a range of medical conditions such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obsesity.
Emina changed fields when she moved to Colorado in 2022 and began working as an RD in school nutrition. She had a great experience conducting work in menu plannning, scratch-based recipe development, and allergy management. It also made her more aware of the impact that institutional food changes can have on public health. Her time working in school nutrition ignited a passion and interest in food system change that led to her completing a graduate degree in Sustainable & Resilient Food Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The degree focused on courses and projects in food systems, program development, outcome-based evaluation, and community development.
With a goal of being closer to Texas, she began looking at fulfilling RD roles in Arkansas. This ultimately led her to apply for the Culinary Medicine Instructor role. She is excited to be a part of the work that the Culinary Medicine Program at UAMS is doing! Emina believes there is great value in improving health outcomes in our communities with not only verbal nutrition education, but also hands-on food literacy and cooking skills. In her free time she enjoys doing group fitness classes, walking and hiking with her little dogs, trying new recipes and foods, and watching a captivating TV show.
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