Name
Elaine McCarthy
Role
Funded Investigator
Dr. Elaine McCarthy is a Lecturer in Nutrition at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork (UCC), where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on energy and nutrient metabolism, lifecycle nutrition, nutritional assessment, and performance nutrition. She is a Lead Investigator at the INFANT Research Centre and a Principal Investigator at the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research.
Dr. McCarthy earned a BSc in Nutritional Sciences (2012) and a PhD in Human Nutrition (2016) from UCC. Her doctoral research, conducted within the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study, explored the links between iron and growth and developmental outcomes in infants and young children. She pursued postdoctoral training at the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research, contributing to the European Commission-funded ODIN project on vitamin D deficiency prevention. Later, she co-investigated the Science Foundation Ireland-funded PiNPoINT study on personalized nutrition for preterm infants at the INFANT Research Centre.
Her research focuses on maternal and pediatric nutrition, particularly the role of micronutrients such as iron in brain development. She has also advanced nutritional biomarker research. Dr. McCarthy is a recipient of the prestigious Health Research Board Fellowship (2020) and has earned multiple awards, including the Nutrition Society Julie Wallace Award (2021).
