Rani Polak

Assistant Professor Part Time, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

CHEF Coaching Program Director, Comprehensive Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital

 Dr. Rani Polak is the founding director of both the Culinary Healthcare Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching program at the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Center of Lifestyle Medicine at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel; as well as an Assistant Professors, Part Time, at the Department of PM & R, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Polak’s focus, along with clinical care, is on clinical and translational research relating to the Culinary Coaching method which combine culinary training with health coaching principles. Dr. Polak is the PI of the Culinary CoRe (Culinary Coaching Research) group which aimed at expanding the culinary coaching as an effective, scalable telemedicine method to improve nutrition; and a course director of a medical education program at Harvard Medical School that disseminate culinary coaching to hundreds clinician worldwide. Dr. Polak work has been featured in many media outlets including Scientific American, Herald Tribute, US News and World Reports and USA Today.