Dr Elaine McCarthy is a Lecturer in Nutrition at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, where she teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on core nutrition topics including energy and nutrient metabolism, lifecycle nutrition, nutritional assessment and performance nutrition. She is a Lead Investigator at the INFANT Research Centre, Principal Investigator at the Cork Centre for Vitamin D and Nutrition Research and Funded Investigator at the Research Ireland-funded Co-Centre for Sustainable Food Systems.

Elaine graduated from University College Cork with a BSc in Nutritional Sciences in 2012. In 2016, she completed her PhD exploring associations between iron and growth and developmental outcomes in infants and young children in the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study. 

Elaine’s research to date has been mainly in the field of maternal and paediatric nutrition, with a particular interest in the role of micronutrients, especially iron, in brain function and development in term and preterm infants. Her other main interest has been in the area of nutritional biomarker research, focusing on nutritional status diagnostic criteria and screening in vulnerable population groups. 

Elaine has presented her work at multiple national and international scientific meetings and published peer-reviewed scientific journal articles in the areas of nutrition and human health. Elaine has received several awards for her research, including a British Nutrition Foundation Drummond Early Career Scientist Award in 2019 and the Nutrition Society Julie Wallace Award in 2021 for her research on iron deficiency in the first 1,000 days of life. She is a member of the Nutrition Society and American Society for Nutrition and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from UCC.

• Iron - iron requirements during the lifecycle; role of iron in human health; development of novel strategies and dietary solutions to tackle iron deficiency.
• Maternal and paediatric nutrition – nutritional requirements for pregnant women, infants and young children; role of micronutrients in brain function, health and development of term and preterm infants.
• Nutritional biomarker research - focusing on nutritional status diagnostic criteria and screening in vulnerable population groups.
• Performance nutrition – food-based approaches to improving nutritional status of athletes and recreationally active individuals, nutrition knowledge and food choice in athletes; .

• Advanced Nutrient Metabolism
• Assessment of Nutritional Status
• Sports and Exercise Nutrition
• Minerals and Human Health 
• Lifecycle Nutrition