Nutrition for Sport, Exercise, and Health

Marie A. Spano, MS, RD, CSCS, CSSD, is one of the country’s leading sports nutritionists. She is the previous major league sports nutritionist for the Atlanta Braves (including the 2021 World Series champions), Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, Chicago Cubs, and Blackzilians (MMA). She combines science with practical experience to help athletes implement customized nutrition plans to maximize athletic performance, recovery, return to play, and career longevity. Also a nutrition communications expert, Spano has appeared on CNN; the Weather Channel; and NBC, ABC, Fox, and CBS affiliates. She has authored hundreds of magazine and trade publication articles in addition to book chapters in NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training and Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. She is coeditor of the first edition of NSCA's Guide to Sport and Exercise Nutrition.

A three-sport collegiate athlete, Spano earned her master’s degree in nutrition from the University of Georgia, where she worked in the athletic department as a graduate assistant running the sports nutrition program. She earned her bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she also ran Division I cross country. Her experiences as a college athlete provide her an effective perspective when working with athletes of all levels, especially student athletes, by giving her a firsthand understanding of how the demands of athletics and the psychological aspects of injury, sleep, recovery, and nutrition can affect an athlete’s overall well-being and performance.

Laura J. Kruskall, PhD, RDN, CSSD, LD, FACSM, FAND, is an associate professor and program director in nutrition sciences at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She is also the director of the UNLV Nutrition Center. She has held numerous leadership positions at the local, state, and national levels, including serving on the board of trustees of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and as the cochair of the committee that authored “Standards of Practice and Standards of Professional Performance for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (Competent, Proficient, and Expert) in Sports Nutrition and Dietetics,” published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2014. She is currently serving on the ACSM Publications Committee and is a member of the editorial board for ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. She serves as the chair of the Dietitian Advisory Group for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, which leads governance of statute NRS.640E (licensure for dietitians in Nevada).

Kruskall earned her PhD in nutrition from Penn State University. She holds a certificate of training in Level 2 Adult Weight Management from the Commission on Dietetic Registration, is certified as an exercise physiologist by ACSM, holds the Exercise Is Medicine credential from ACSM, and has the Board-Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics (CSSD) credential. She earned fellow status with both ACSM and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for her leadership and contributions to the profession. Her areas of teaching and practice expertise are sports and human performance nutrition, weight management, and medical nutrition therapy. In addition to her academic duties at the university, she is a nutrition consultant for Canyon Ranch Spa Club in Las Vegas.

D. Travis Thomas, PhD, RDN, CSSD, LD, FAND, is an associate professor of clinical and sports nutrition and program director of the clinical nutrition masters program in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky. He teaches an advanced sports nutrition class for graduate students and a nutrition for injury prevention and rehabilitation class for undergraduate students. He also teaches and directs multiple clinical nutrition graduate courses and serves as director for the undergraduate certificate program in nutrition for human performance.

Thomas holds the Board-Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics (CSSD) credential. He has held multiple volunteer and leadership positions with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Sports and Human Performance Nutrition practice group, and the Commission on Dietetic Registration. He served as lead author on the 2016 “Nutrition and Athletic Performance” position stand endorsed by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American College of Sports Medicine, and Dietitians of Canada. In 2016, he was inducted as a fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and in 2020 he received the highest award from the Sports, Cardiovascular, and Wellness (SCAN) Practice Group: the National Career Achievement Award.

Thomas has 14 years of experience conducting human studies involving nutrition and exercise interventions across the life span. Since 2011, he has served as an investigator on funded research projects involving a wide range of nutrition issues associated with the preservation and enhancement of skeletal muscle function and performance. These studies have investigated the relationship between vitamin D and muscle metabolic function, nutrition, and physical function in aging and athletic populations; nutrition interventions to improve endothelial function and to reduce symptoms in patients with advanced heart failure; and nutritional strategies to preserve physical performance and lean body mass in patients with cancer.