About One James

One James is a Colorado nonprofit corporation with one job: making complex science clear and useful. It offers continuing education for experienced health and wellness coaches and consulting for mission-driven organizations.

The name is the promise. When you work with One James, you work with one person, start to finish. The James who answers your message is the same James who writes the course or builds your project.

About James

James Peth, MS, MPH, PhD, is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach and an associate professor of food science and human nutrition at Colorado State University, with a second appointment in community and behavioral health at the Colorado School of Public Health. His work combines 3 things that rarely come in one person: nutrition science, the science of how adults learn, and 2 decades of design and communication.

Nutrition science and teaching

  • Teaching since 1996, at the University of Arizona, Wright State University, Adelphi University, and Colorado State University

  • Courses in introductory and advanced human nutrition, nutrient biochemistry and metabolism, macronutrients and micronutrients, nutrition for public health graduate students, and health and wellness coaching

  • Graduate courses at Adelphi in life cycle nutrition, community nutrition, and nutrition education and communication

  • Built and directs CSU's Integrative Wellness Coaching Program, the university's first NBHWC-approved program

  • Helped create CSU's online graduate certificate in nutrition sciences

  • Has designed or redesigned every course he teaches, and received an early career teaching award from CSU's College of Health and Human Sciences

  • Research on Food as Medicine interventions, through a clinical partnership with Craig Hospital

How adults learn

  • Doctoral research on what predicts how well adults master complex science, drawing on self-determination theory and research on how students approach learning

  • Graduate study in instructional design, adult education, educational research, communication, and positive psychology

  • That research is the design framework for every One James course

Design, brands, and building things

  • Design training through UC San Diego Extension and the San Diego New Media Center's 800-hour Interactive Media program

  • Ran his own web and design firm for about 10 years, with about 50 regular clients

  • Helped people start businesses and organizations: brand identities, websites, hosting and domains, information architecture, and creative direction and project management for copywriters, photographers, and developers

Public health and Extension work

  • Conceived, designed, and led the CDC-funded Food Source Information wiki for outbreak investigators for about 10 years, writing and editing its food production, outbreak, and public health content

  • Built the FoodSmart Colorado website and brand for CSU Extension, and developed online outreach for the Farm to Table Food Safety program

  • Designed the Understanding Diabetes online training, now used by Extension programs at more than 15 other universities

  • Publications consultant for the BACCHUS Network

Volunteer work

James founded Amicitia Reciproca, a separate nonprofit that builds reciprocal friendships between volunteers and people living with physical disabilities, where he serves as volunteer coordinator.

Education and training

  • PhD, Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University

  • MPH, Nutrition, Colorado State University

  • MS, Physiological Sciences, University of Arizona

  • BS, Exercise Science (Physiology and Nutrition), Miami University

  • Professional Certificate in Multimedia Development, and Specialized Certificates in Digital Design, Web Design, Web Publishing, Digital Imaging, Animation for the Web, and Creative Direction with Digital Media, UC San Diego Extension

  • Interactive Media Certificate Program (800 hours in print, multimedia, and web design), San Diego New Media Center

  • Coursework in design, multimedia, and advertising, Art Institute, Academy of Art University, and Samford University; Search Engine Optimization certificate

  • Graduate coursework in instructional design, adult education, educational research, communication, and positive psychology, Colorado State University

  • Year-long health and wellness coach training and a 6-month supervised coaching practicum

James also takes on a small number of one-on-one coaching clients.