Assistant Professor of Nutrition
Sam Houston State University
I was born and educated in Ireland. I am a passionate advocate for the power of nutrition in human health. My career highlights to date are:
1. Developing and delivering a nutrition curriculum for osteopathic medical students
2. Identifying and describing a new syndrome: osteosarcopenic adiposity (OSA)
3. Ideating, developing, and publishing the concept of nutrient ratios
4. Innovating, developing, and researching a new scientific direction for Glucerna
My career path has developed strong academic and industry cross-functional skills including leading scientific brand strategy and innovation pipeline development. My roles as a university faculty member and brand leader has trained me to collect and analyze data, problem solve, make decisions, and be an effective manager. In addition, my publication record reflects my abilities to collect, organize, and condense information to form new hypothesis. In conjunction to developing analytical skills, my background has advanced my written and oral communication abilities. My range of expertise ranges from writing consumer facing promotional material to peer reviewed scientific articles and book chapters. My scientific communication skills have allowed me to develop and provide sales and marketing training, speak to patients and customers and stakeholders, present new scientific ideas to senior leadership, providing nutrition training for physicians (I co-developed a renal nutrition course that has been used internationally; Total Nutrition Therapy Renal), as well as university level lecturing. As a clinical scientist in the medical food industry, I strengthened my clinical trial skills as well as proficiency in good clinical practice (ICH guidelines). I was the lead scientist for several clinical trials. I recently returned to academia for the opportunity to educate future physicians in nutrition and pursue my personal research interests:
• The role of nutrition in contemporary medicine
• Interconnectedness of diet with health and disease
• Optimizing patient health education with visual aids
• Importance of body composition in health
• Inflammation and diet
• Nutrition and ‘omics, systems biology and metabolic optimization