Grace is a Research Associate in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York and is passionate about improving the health and well-being of children through their diets. She has a keen interest in food system regeneration towards one which optimises health and the environment. After achieving a BSc (Hons) in Food Marketing and Nutrition at Newcastle University, Grace completed her PhD at the Population Health Sciences Institute, also at Newcastle University, in 2020. Her research was focused on exploring parental views of the Change4Life Sugar Smart campaign, one year after it was launched. She also completed an in-depth exploration of stakeholder views of primary school food across the socio-economic spectrum in Newcastle upon Tyne. Following the submission of her PhD, Grace spent three months as an embedded researcher within Newcastle City Council’s Public Health department. This was a valuable opportunity which helped to increase her understanding of the challenges involved with developing and delivering public health policy initiatives. She also worked closely with a range of stakeholders who are directly involved in school food provision, to examine ways of improving the school food offering across Newcastle.
Email: grace.gardner@york.ac.uk