Irene Carvalho, a PhD student from Lund University, Sweden, is currently visiting NRI and is working with Aurélie Bechoff, Food Technologist and recent winner of the Early Career Research Excellence award.
Originally from Mozambique, Irene is researching the use of locally available and affordable crops to produce complementary food. Her research aims at reducing infant malnutrition that is prevalent in Mozambique. Her supervisors are Yvonne Grandfeld and Peter Dejmek, two well-known scientists in their field.
Irene's research and training at NRI involves analysis of carotenoid from orange-fleshed sweet potato products, is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
Irene said; "I hope my project will make a difference in tackling malnutrition in my country. I have found that the main diet in rural areas is poor in essential micronutrients and young children are the first to be exposed to malnutrition since highly nutritious food is essential to their development.
I think it is important for people to develop products based on local crops because they will benefit the economy more than imported crops. Thank you to NRI for welcoming me and training me during these couple of weeks. The time here has been fruitful and I have done some analyses that are important to my PhD research."
