About
Dr Taryn Smith is a Research Associate within the Department of Women's and Children's Health. Prior to this she completed her post-doc at the Institute for Global Nutrition, University of California Davis, and holds a PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Surrey.
Dr Smith's research interests include more fully understanding the prevalence, causes and consequences of micronutrient deficiencies among high-risk population groups, particularly infants, children and women, in high- and low-resource settings, and the design, implementation and evaluation of community-based interventions and programmes to improve nutrition and health outcomes among these groups.
During her doctoral research, Dr Smith led the implementation of a dose-response vitamin D supplementation randomised controlled trial in 14-18 year old adolescents, as part of the pan-European ODIN Project. The primary aim was to estimate the distribution of vitamin D intakes required to maintain circulating vitamin D concentrations above various proposed cut-off thresholds during the winter-time at a northern latitude. In 2017 Dr Smith was awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Postgraduate Researcher of the Year award in recognition of exceptional contribution to research.
During her post-doctoral research, Dr Smith's focus shifted to thiamine deficiency disorders, which are a major contributor to infant morbidity and mortality in Lao PDR, but may go unrecognised and untreated due to the non-specific clinical presentations. This involved her relocating to Lao PDR for two years to lead the implementation of a prospective cohort study aimed at developing a predictive model for thiamine responsive disorders, to help healthcare providers more accurately diagnose and treat thiamine deficiency disorders in high-risk settings.
Dr Smith's current research at the University of Liverpool has led her research to focus on the role of nutrition in early childhood neurocognitive development. As part of this role she is working across two different projects, one in Malawi aimed at characterising the development of executive functions over the first 1,000 days of life, and a 2x2 factorial trial in Tanzania aimed at evaluating the effects of an improved ready-to-use therapeutic food (with additional essential fatty acids, choline and vitamin B12) and psychosocial stimulation, individually and in combination, on the cognitive development of children treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM).
Prizes or Honours
- Drummond Early Career Scientist (British Nutrition Foundation, 2020)
- Vice-Chancellor's Postgraduate Researcher of the Year 2017 (University of Surrey, 2017)
- Postgraduate Symposium Competition Winner (The Nutrition Society, 2017)
- New Investigator Award (International Conference on Children's Bone Health, 2017)
Funded Fellowships
- IMMANA Fellowship: Further development and assessment of tools to measure risk factors for and treatment of thiamine deficiency disorders: a comparison of rural and urban contexts in Lao PDR (2021 - 2022)