Appointment of Heinz Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Seema Mihrshahi has been appointed as the Heinz Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, School of Public Health at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The H.J. Heinz Company Australia Limited is providing sponorship for this position for 4 years to support research in early childhood feeding at QUT, including the Nourish Study.

The Nourish Study is a large randomized controlled study which will be evaluating how the promotion of positive early feeding practices can be used as a strategy to prevent childhood obesity by influencing children's food preferences and dietary intakes (1).  Dr Mihrshahi will be involved in analysing the data and reporting on the outcomes from this study,

Dr Mihrshahi has extensive research experience in early childhood health and nutrition having previously worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Epidemiology and Preventative Medicine at Monash University, Research Fellow in International and Immigrant Health at the University of Melbourne and Research Fellow in Nutrition at the University of Sydney and the George Institute for International Health Research. She was also the project manager of the Childhood Asthma Prevention Study, a multicentre intervention trial which looked at dietary modification and dustmite avoidance for the primary prevention of asthma in children. Her major research projects to date have focussed on the health and nutrition of children in developing countries.

References.

1. Daniels LA, Magarey A et al, The NOURISH randomised control trial. Positive feeding practices and food preferences in early childhood- a primary prevention program for childhood obesity. BMC Public Health 2009, 9:387  doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-387  http://www.biomedcentral.com./content/pdf/1471-2458-9-387.pdf