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Stephanie A. Atkinson, PhD (she/her/hers)

Professor Emerita
McMaster University
Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Biography – Stephanie Ann Atkinson, PhD, DSc (Hon), FCAHS, DFASN, FCNS

Dr. Stephanie Atkinson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. Dr. Atkinson received her Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Toronto and completed post-doctoral training in Endocrinology at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. Her career long research focused on optimizing health of infants and children including investigations of the factors influencing growth, body composition and skeletal development in premature and term infants and in children with growth and bone disorders secondary to pediatric diseases or drug therapy such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, epilepsy and cystic fibrosis. Recently, her research focused on randomized clinical trials and epidemiological investigations of the environmental (nutrition), genetic and biochemical factors during fetal, neonatal and early childhood life that play a role in defining the offspring phenotype and as risk determinants for non-communicable diseases. Over her career she served the nutrition community in many elected positions such as President of the American Society for Nutrition and Chair of the Institute Advisory Board for the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Since 1995 she has served as member or chair of committees under the auspices of the National Academies including committees on various aspects of setting the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) such as the recent Standing Committee for the Review of the DRI Framework, the process for the DGAs, and feeding of infants and children from birth to 24 months. Other invited advisory roles included Health Canada, the World Health Organization/Food & Agricultural Organization and grant review committees for CIHR, NIH and the EU Joint Program Initiative.

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