Rebecca O’Connell is Professor of Food, Families and Society at the University of Hertfordshire and a researcher in NIHR ARC East of England’s Prevention and Early Detection in Health and Social Care theme.
Rebecca currently works with colleagues in this theme on the ‘Food, with Care’ project. A partnership between the ARC, CRIPACC, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, ‘Food, with Care’ is helping develop and deliver a food strategy for the new world-leading children’s hospital in Cambridge.
Rebecca is a social anthropologist by training and leads the Food, Eating and Inequalities team at CRIPACC. Her research examines the social, cultural and economic determinants shaping what children and families eat, and the part food plays in their everyday lives. She is a Visiting Professor at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, and, since 2019, has been a trustee of the charity School Food Matters.