DrCatherine Phillips

Dr Catherine Phillips is an Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin. Her academic background includes a B.Sc (Hons) in Biochemistry from UCD and a Ph.D in Clinical Medicine (topic diabetic dyslipidaemia) from Trinity College Dublin. Her research spans the role of dietary, lifestyle, biological, genetic/nutrigenetic and epigenetic factors in cardiometabolic health and disease. Current research interests revolve around life course health and nutrition, in particular the determinants of childhood, maternal, adult and inter-generational obesity (including sub-phenotypes) and cardiometabolic disease risk, with a particular focus on early life programming of childhood and adult health. As PI or co-PI Dr Phillips been involved in generating grant income in excess of €6.1 million. She regularly serves as a reviewer for a wide range of international funding agencies and journals, has been an editorial board member of Nutrients since 2012 and has guest edited 5 of the journals special issues. 

Feb 2025 to date: PI on the SDG Challenge project "Personalised mHealth Maternal Nutritional Education for Equitable Nutritional Access and Improved Maternal and Offspring Health Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa" (acronym AMEN) funded by Research Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs. Project partners include the University of Limpopo, South Africa.

Jan 2022 to date: PI on project funded by the Biostime Institute for Nutrition and Care examining predictors of childhood dietary inflammation and its relationship with childhood obesity in the ALPHABET consortium children. 

April 2021 to date: Irish PI on the European consortium project "First 1000 days Strategies to Prevent Childhood Obesity" project (acronym EndObesity), funded by the HRB through the transnational JPI Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life ERA-Net HDHL-INTIMIC call “Prevention of unhealthy weight gain and obesity during crucial phases throughout the lifespan (PREPHOBES)”. This project aims to develop, implement and evaluate innovative, multi-disciplinary strategies for prevention of childhood obesity by targeting family-based lifestyle factors in the pre-conception period, pregnancy and early childhood, covering the first 1000 days of life. The consortium includes European partners from academia, municipal/governmental health care services, educational stakeholders, industry partners and parent childhood organisations, and combines expertise in multiple areas of childhood obesity science and implementation.

Jan 2017 - Dec 2021: lead PI and project coordinator of the ERA Joint Programming Initiative Healthy Diet for Healthy Life (JPI-HDHL) and SFI co-funded “Early life programming of childhood health: a nutritional and epigenetic investigation of adiposity and bone, cardiometabolic, neurodevelopmental and respiratory health” (ALPHABET) project which aims to improve our understanding of the relationships between maternal nutrition, offspring health and epigenetics. The consortium includes partners from the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science and School of Medicine, UCD; University of Bristol, UK; University of Southampton, UK; INSERM UMR 1153, France; University Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands; Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Poland and University of South Carolina, USA.

Jan 2019 - Dec 2021: lead PI on a Breakthrough Cancer Research funded project entitled “Contribution of diet and lifestyle factors and metabolic phenotype to cancer risk in a middle-to-older aged Irish population”, in collaboration with the School of Public Health, University College Cork.

Jan 2011- to date: Co-PI within the HRB Centre for Diet and Health Research (CDHR). Research activities within the HRB CDHR, in collaboration with the School of Public Health in University College Cork, include investigation of the Cork and Kerry Diabetes and Heart Disease Study (Mitchelstown cohort). This cross-sectional study of ~2000 middle-to-older aged men and women recruited in 2010/11 with follow-up in 2016/17 provides a wealth of dietary, lifestyle, anthropometric, biological, clinical and sociodemographic data and represents a valuable resource to test a range of novel hypotheses relevant to diet-related disease. Current research interests include obesity phenotypes (metabolically healthy obesity), cardiometabolic risk prediction and influence of adverse childhood experiences on adult health.

Currently the research team includes 3 postdoctoral research fellows, 1 PhD student and visiting research students.

Open to PhD applications.