Professor Mairead Kiely
Biography
Professor Mairead Kiely, BSc, PhD, PGDip, is a nutrition scientist and current Head of the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences at University College Cork (UCC). She is also a joint director of the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research and a Principal Investigator at the INFANT Research Centre (UCC). She is a Registered Nutritionist (Public Health) with the Association for Nutrition. Professor Kiely has more than 20 years research experience in human nutrition and health. She leads an extensive research program, which integrates the main themes of micronutrients, in particular vitamin D, and maternal and child nutrition and development. She has published more than about 200 peer-reviewed papers and several international reports; and has a H-index of 60 (via Google Scholar).
Professor Kiely is a member of the UK Scientific Advisory Committee for Nutrition (SACN) as well as the SACN subgroup on Maternal and Child Nutrition. She was Chair the Irish Section of the Nutrition Society over the last 3 years. Professor Kiely was recently elected to the Royal Irish Academy (2022).
Current research interests:
- Vitamin D - Vitamin D requirements for health; particularly in women during pregnancy and in early life; Sustainable food fortification strategies for increasing vitamin D in the food supply to prevent population deficiency
- Maternal and Child Nutrition- Nutritional status in newborn infants and young children & impacts on neurological development; Nutritional requirements and optimising nutritional support in preterm infants
- Development of Sustainable Healthy Diets to meet nutritional requirements & protect the environment
- Food Data - Dietary assessment, food composition data and dietary modelling