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Aifric O'Sullivan

EASAC Working Group on Food, Nutrition, Security and Agriculture

Dr Aifric O'Sullivan is the Academy’s nominee to the Working Group on Food Security. The Working Group will produce a global report focusing on the specific regional/continental situation and provide scientific recommendations on the topic of "Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture". It shall give advice to policy-makers and decision leaders as well as Foundations and donors worldwide. Reports from the four regional academy networks will form the basis of the global report.

Dr Aifric O’Sullivan is a Principal Investigator in the UCD Institute of Food and Health and member of faculty in the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science. She joined UCD as an Assistant Professor in Human Nutrition in 2012 from University California, Davis. Dr O’Sullivan’s main research interest is nutritional phenotyping – exploring variation in human metabolism and how individuals respond differently to diets and lifestyles. A major component of her work is focused on infant nutrition. Specifically, she uses metabolomics and other strategies to better understand the impact of maternal and infant diet and lifestyle on early life growth and metabolism, in developed and developing countries. Detailed metabolic information and the capacity to monitor healthy metabolic development of infants consuming different diets under different environmental conditions is critical to ensuring that health policies and infant feeding guidelines are based on the most robust scientific evidence. This research has the potential to underpin future personalised approaches to nutrition and health, as well as national and international infant nutrition guidelines.  She is a member of the Board of Trustees for UCD Volunteers Overseas and is Vice Chair of the UCD Childhood and Human Development (CHiLD) Research Centre.

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