Dr Tan Pui Yee

Profile

Dr Tan Pui Yee has joined the School of Food Science and Nutrition, Faculty of Environment as a Research Fellow in Malnutrition, Obesity and Public Health, since September 2020. She obtained her PhD in Public Health Nutrition from the University of Nottingham Malaysia in Feb 2020, and have 5 years of experience in conducting both nutritional epidemiology studies and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on human participants.

Her PhD dissertation focuses on investigating the role of dietary, lifestyle and genetic factors, as well as the effect of gene-diet interactions on obesity and cardio-metabolic risk factors including insulin resistance, blood lipid levels and inflammatory markers, in multi-ethnic Malaysian adults. In addition to the above, her PhD dissertation also focuses on developing and assessing the efficiency of an individualised dietary intervention programme, in improving dietary intake, anthropometric and clinical outcomes, in overweight and obese individuals, using randomised controlled trial.

She is currently working on a BBSRC funded project, to address micronutrient deficiencies (MND) associated with the double burden of childhood malnutrition (DBM) in China. This project aims to inform policy makers, government agencies, agri-food industries and public health advice, about the social, economic and environmental barriers and novel approaches to improve the scalability of strategies (using a combined food system intervention package including supplementation, bio-fortification, culturally acceptable educational materials and nutritional guidelines for schools), aimed at reducing MND associated with the DBM in China and other low-income and middle-income countries.

Research interests

As researcher who has strong interests in public health nutrition, her research mainly focuses on nutritional epidemiology study and randomised controlled trial, particularly in the area of prevention and management of diet-related diseases. These include:

• Nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions in addressing double burden of childhood malnutrition (DBM) and micronutrient deficiencies (MND)
• Effect of dietary, lifestyle and genetic factors, as well as gene-diet interactions on obesity and non-communicable diseases (PhD)
• Interventions to ameliorate obesity-related metabolic risk factors of non-communicable diseases (PhD)
• Personalised nutrition and management of chronic diseases associated with obesity (PhD)
• Diet, telomere length and DNA damage (Collaborative research)
• Micronutrient intake and heavy metal toxicity (Collaborative research)

In recognition of her research works, publications and contributions, she is grateful to have received few awards during her PhD including ‘Finalists of Rising Star Award 2019’ by Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) and ‘University Postgraduate Prize Award 2019’ from the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

Qualifications

• PhD, Public Health Nutrition, University of Nottingham in Malaysia, 2014-2020
• BSc (Hons), Nutrition, University of Nottingham in Malaysia, 2011-2014

Professional memberships

• Member, Nutrition Society of Malaysia