Background and experience
2020-dd Professor, Department of Nutrition and Public Health, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, UiA (changed name from Department of Pubilc Health, Sports and Nutrition in 2019)
2015-2020 Associate Professor, Department of Pubilc Health, Sports and Nutrition, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, UiA
2012-2015 PhD candidate, Department of Pubilc Health, Sports and Nutrition, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, UiA
1995-2015 Clinical Nutritionist, Children's Department, Sørlandet Hospital HF
1992-1995 Clinical Nutrittionist, Kirkenes Hospital, Norway
1991-1992 Clinical Nutrittionist, private practice, Kristiansand, Norway
1988-1991 Clinical Nutrittionist, Ernæringssenteret A/S, Kristiansand, Norway
Areas of responsibility
As head of the Department of Nutrition and Public Health, my main focus is to see to it that the lecturers and researchers have what they need to carry out their duties and work within education, research and research dissemination.
I am involved in the departmental PhD Specialization in Public Health, and in hiring processes and other committees.
My department houses two Bachelor's programs in Public Health Work and Public Health Nutrition, repsectively. We also offer a Master's program in Public Health Science. We are involved in Teacher's Education with the subject Food and Health (Home Economics) and in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) education with Food and Meals. We also offer Master's specialization in Food and Health within Teacher's Education.
Teaching
For the time being I am co-supervising two PhD students.
Research
My scientific work concerns diet and nutrition in nutritionally vulnerable life stages, i.e. young adulthood/preconception years, pregnancy, infancy and early childhood.
I am actively involved in several research projects addressing dietary challenges in these life stages through the UiA-established Priority Research Centre on Lifecourse Nutrition. We have analyzed data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Study to investigate associations between maternal diet during pregnancy and measures of pregnancy health, child growth and development, mental health and personality up to 8 yrs.
In other projects we have developed e-learning resources targeting diet to be tested in target groups (pregnant women, parents of infants and toddlers, and young adults) and evaluated them for effectiveness in robust designs.
One of the focus areas of the research centre is studying the importance of family meals. In seeral studies we have found associations between early family meal participation and measures of diet quality, growth and development.