Dr. Donovan received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of California, Davis. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at Stanford University School of Medicine, she accepted a faculty position at the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1991.  She was promoted to Professor in 2001 and, in 2003, was named the first recipient of the Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health at the University of Illinois.  She served as Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences Interdisciplinary Graduate Program from 1999-2009.  She is actively involved in her professional societies and serve as President of the American Society for Nutrition (2011-2012)and the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation (2018-2020)

In 2017, Donovan was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine as someone who has “demonstrated outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service.” A few years later, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar appointed her to sit on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic in North America, Donovan was appointed the director of the institution’s newly established Personalized Nutrition Initiative (PNI). In this role, she said she “envisions the PNI building transdisciplinary collaborative efforts across campus to answer fundamental questions regarding how nutrition modulates health and disease across the lifespan.” Following this appointment, Donovan was named a permanent faculty member of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois.