Congratulations to post-doctoral Researcher Marita Hennessy for this European Health Psychology Society Herman Schaalma Award for her Health research Board SPHeREprogramme  PhD in 2020!!

Marita is a postdoctoral researcher with the Pregnancy Loss Group at INFANT.

Prior to joining INFANT in January 2020, Marita was a Health Research Board-funded SPHeRE PhD Scholar within the Health Behaviour Change Research Group at NUI Galway. For her doctoral studies, she examined behavioural interventions delivered by health professionals during the first 1,000 days to prevent childhood obesity.

Thesis Title: Obesity prevention during early life: Developing the evidence base to maximise the effectiveness of interventions delivered by health professionals

Her research interests include maternal and child health, childhood obesity, health behaviour change, implementation science, commercial determinants of health, health inequalities and men’s health. She is experienced in a range of research methods including qualitative, mixed methods, systematic review, and creative approaches. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, Marita held research roles with safefood, University College Cork, the Children’s Research Centre-Trinity College Dublin, the National Cancer Registry, and Waterford Institute of Technology.

Marita is currently working on the RE:CURRENT study led by Prof Keelin O’Donoghue and funded by the Health Research Board, evaluating recurrent miscarriage (RM) services in Ireland to inform efforts to standardise and improve the quality of these services.

Learn more about the RE:CURRENT study here https://www.infantcentre.ie/research/research-studies/recurrent/

Well done Marita, we are all very proud of you – for the work you’ve done & continue to do!