BIOGRAPHY

Jessica Omand is a registered dietitian postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Child Health Evaluative Sciences at the Hospital for Sick Children under the mentorship of Dr. Catherine Birken and Dr. Magdalena Janus. Her program of research is focused on primary prevention of childhood diseases in Canada through nutritional interventions focussed on early life. Following her clinical training at St. Michael’s hospital Jessica completed her MSc and PhD in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto with funding support from CIHR (MSc and doctoral awards) through Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute and Clinician Scientist Training Program funding through the Research Training Centre at the Hospital for Sick Children. During her PhD, Jessica led the inaugural linkage of the TARGet Kids! database, the largest primary care practice based research network for children, with health administrative data at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Using these linked datasets, she examined whether vitamin D was associated with health service utilization for respiratory diseases. The specific aims of her CCHCSP funded postdoctoral fellowship are to determine if nutritional risk in early life is associated with a child’s readiness to start school.