Heather Keller receives career recognition award | School of Public Health Sciences

Heather Keller, a Kinesiology and Health Sciences professor, has received a career recognition award from the Canadian Nutrition Society: the Earle Willard McHenry Award for Distinguished Service in Nutrition. This award recognizes her 10+ years working to improve hospital care of malnourished patients in Canada.

"It is such an honour to receive this award," Keller said. "As an applied health researcher, I conduct research in real-world settings, addressing clinical problems that are pervasive, but often unglamourous. This work has led to not only improved nutrition care practices, but policy change, which is having a significant impact on patient’s hospital experience and recovery. This work would not have been possible without my trainees, colleagues at the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force, and the many collaborators in hospitals and other healthcare settings across Canada."

Keller heads the Nutrition and Aging Lab and is a UW-Schlegel Research Chair in Nutrition and Aging. Her research focuses on improving food quality and nutrition care processes in hospitals and long-term care homes.

She uses mixed methods to answer a variety of research questions, such as the identification of malnutrition through the implementation of screening and diagnostic processes and preventing poor food intake through multi-component interventions that address food access, food quality and the mealtime experience.

She has also led several national research and knowledge translation projects, including the landmark Nutrition Care in Canadian Hospitals, More-2-Eat and Making the Most of Mealtimes in Long Term Care studies.

The Canadian Nutrition Society is the leading Canadian organization that integrates disciplines and professions interested in nutrition.