Kirsty graduated from Ulster University with a BSc Hons (first class) Human Nutrition, followed by a PhD in Nutrition.  She worked as a Research Associate within the Nutrition team at Ulster on a range of externally funded research projects (2011-2014), before being promoted to Research Fellow in July 2014.  Kirsty also acted as Lecturer in Food Science within the School of Biomedical Sciences (maternity cover, 2015).

Her research at the Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE) is focused on agri-food nutrition and consumer innovation, and she also has a particular interest in vitamin D requirements for health. She has supervised a number of PhDs to successful completion across these research areas.

Kirsty has experience of conducting controlled human intervention studies in different population and clinical groups Kirsty is author on more than 35 peer-reviewed publications investigating various aspects of agri-food nutrition and consumer innovation, food choice, vitamin D and health.  In 2014, Kirsty was the inaugural recipient of the Julie Wallace Medal Lecture awarded by the Nutrition Society in recognition of early stage scientific excellence in the field of nutrition.