Assoc ProfessorBreige McNulty

Breige's main research interests are in the area of food consumption and using such data to gain an understanding of the impact of foods, nutrients, food ingredients and chemicals on health with a view to underpinning food safety and policy . Her previous academic background focused on metabolic health concentrating on folate and related B-vitamins during pregnancy. Currently, she is focusing on using data from the national surveys to explore factors which influence iodine and iron intakes and status in the Irish population and also to study the relationship between genetics and obesity, wholegrain intake and metabolic health and dietary behaviours in relation to CVD. Additionally, she has an interest in exposure assessment with a particular focus on additives and pesticide residues. During her time within UCD she has had the opportunity to co-write and collaborate on a number of successful grants both nationally and internationally. She is a collaborator in a European funded grant Total Diet Study Exposure an FP7-funded collaborative project. She has work with and produced industry reports for companies such as Danone, Cereal Partners Worldwide, Unilever and the National Dairy Council. She is an invited expert on the ILSI Addition of Nutrients Expert Group and the EFSA Network on Food Consumption Data committees within Europe, in which she represents Ireland. From this she has gained valuable experience communicating with many different stakeholders including those from industry and from governmental agencies. She is a member of the Joint Irish Nutri-genomics Organisation (JINGO) and the European Nutritional Phenotype Database Sharing Initiative within the Joint Programming Initiative (JINGO-JPI) which has gained her experience of working as part of an inter-institutional and trans-disciplinary research programme.