Elaine McCarthy

Lecturer in Nutrition, School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork
Dr Elaine McCarthy is a Lecturer in Nutrition at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, where she teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on core nutrition topics including energy and nutrient metabolism, lifecycle nutrition, nutritional assessment and performance nutrition. She is a Lead Investigator at the INFANT Research Centre (https://www.infantcentre.ie/) and a Principal Investigator at the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research.

Elaine graduated from University College Cork with a BSc in Nutritional Sciences in 2012 and a PhD in Human Nutrition in 2016. Her PhD investigated associations between iron and growth and developmental outcomes in infants and young children in the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study. Elaine began her postdoctoral training at the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research on the European Commission funded ODIN integrated project on food-based strategies for vitamin D deficiency prevention, exploring the role of vitamin D in neurological development in childhood. Following this, Elaine diversified into the preterm nutrition space, working as co-investigator on the Science Foundation Ireland-funded PiNPoINT (Personalised Nutrition for the Preterm Infant) Study in the INFANT Research Centre.

Elaine’s research to date has been mainly in the field of maternal and paediatric nutrition, with a particular interest in the role of micronutrients, especially iron, in brain function and development in term and preterm infants. Her other main interest has been in the area of nutritional biomarker research, focusing on nutritional status diagnostic criteria and screening in vulnerable population groups. In 2020, she was awarded a prestigious Applying Research into Policy and Practice Fellowship from the Health Research Board in Ireland to develop a screening strategy for iron deficiency in pregnant women and infants.

Elaine has presented her work at multiple national and international scientific meetings and published peer-reviewed scientific journal articles in the areas of nutrition and human health. Elaine has received several awards for her research, including a British Nutrition Foundation Drummond Early Career Scientist Award in 2019 and the Nutrition Society Julie Wallace Award in 2021 for her research on iron deficiency in the first 1,000 days of life. She is a member of the Nutrition Society and American Society for Nutrition and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from UCC.