Fiona Lavelle

Dr Fiona Lavelle is a Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences at King's College London. Her background in Sport Science and Health (Dublin City University) and Preventive Cardiology (Imperial College London), gives her a wide perspective on a number of health-related issues. She obtained her PhD in 2017 from the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University Belfast, investigating the impact of cooking and food skills on the healthiness of diets in adults as well as barriers and facilitators to cooking from basic ingredients. She recently won both the BNF Drummond Early Career Scientist and Nutrients Young Investigator awards for her research in culinary nutrition. She was first author on a number of high impact publications in relation to adults cooking behaviours as well innovative research into the impact of age of learning cooking skills on skill retention and dietary outcomes and on the transference of domestic cooking skills from parent to child. She has been involved in and led on developing and implementing engaging age appropriate food education materials for primary school children in a multi-stakeholder, whole-school approach complex intervention. She is currently leading novel interdisciplinary research on interlinking motor skills development and cooking skills in children.