Catherine Jane Field PhD, RD
Catherine Field is a CRC Tier I professor of Human Nutrition and Metabolism at the University of Alberta. Herresearch program centers on the effect of nutrition on the immune system. Current areas of research are: the role of polyunsaturated fats on the development of the infant’s immune system, the use of specific fatty acids in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer and identifying the association between nutritional status and maternal mental health and infant neuro-physical development. She is a co-PI of a large maternal infant cohort, APrON (Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition). She has published more than 250 peer reviewed publications, been invited to speak more than 100 times nationally and internationally and has trained over a 100 students, from high school to post-doctoral levels, in research. Dr. Field received the McCalla and Killam Professorships from the University of Alberta, the Earl Willard McHenry Award for Leadership in Nutrition from the Canadian Nutrition Society and the Mary Mitchell Award for service to the Dietetic Profession in Alberta. Dr. Field is currently the Past-President of, and only the second non-American, of the American Society for Nutrition, which is an academic society of researchers, educators and translators of nutrition with more than 7000 members globally. She current serves on the International Life Sciences Board of Trustees, is member of the CIHR Institute for Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes Advisory Board, and an Associate Editor for Advances in Nutrition. She was one of the co-founding Directors of the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta in 2012 that brought together cancer researchers from 10 different Faculties at the University of Alberta.
Sessions in which Catherine Jane Field PhD, RD participates
Monday 10 May, 2021
The majority of immune development and the ability to ‘tolerate’ food proteins occurs after birth, during the period when most infants’ are consuming human milk. The omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), is required for immune function but Canadian have one of the lowest contents of DHA in their breast milk in the world. The content of this fatty acid is highly variable in breast milk and depends primarily on dietary intake. Using information from the ...