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wpadmin NRF 25 yearsNRF in the News October 3, 2024 This year, the NRF is celebrating a major milestone in its history as it commemorates 25 years of Research, Innovation, Impact and Partnerships. It always gives us great joy to share the accomplishments and impact of the many students and researchers we have supported during various stages of their careers. We thank all participants for submitting their stories and hope you enjoy reading about their journey with the NRF. Dr Phumudzo Tshiambara is an nGAP Lecturer in Community Nutrition at the University of Pretoria. She is a former DSI-NRF intern and also received NRF funding for her postgraduate studies. How did your journey start? I always wanted to be in the health stream as I come from a background of nurses, but I wanted something different within the health stream. I applied and was accepted at the University of Venda (very close to my home) to study Food Sciences. Upon orientation, I realised that BSc Nutrition would give me more opportunities, specifically working with community members in assessing, analysing and addressing nutrition-related problems within the communities. In my fourth year, I applied for the NRF internship as I wanted to be in academia, and I was fortunate to be placed at the North-West University Potchefstroom campus where my passion and exposure to research were nurtured. I applied for an MSc in Nutrition at the same institution and enrolled for the course after completing my internship. I struggled to get employment in nutrition until I was forwarded a post about the nGAP programme and applied for it. I was appointed in November 2018 and registered for a PhD in Nutrition the following year. I am passionate about community nutrition and engagement as I coordinate and lecture the module in our department. I received the community engagement merit award in December 2023 at the School of Health Care Sciences, University of Pretoria. How has your affiliation with the NRF impacted your studies/career? I received the nGAP proposal development funds for two years during my PhD studies, and a Master’s scarce skills grant for two years. I was also a DSI-NRF intern. I was fortunate to know about the funding opportunities at the NRF as I did not think I could enrol for a Master’s due to a lack of funding, but the NRF influenced me to study further. I encourage students to apply for NRF funding as it opens many doors. What is your area of expertise? I am currently coordinating and lecturing community nutrition from the third to fourth-year level in our department. My research focus and area of expertise include community nutrition, maternal and child nutrition, infant and young child feeding practices, anthropometric measurements, and growth as well as HIV exposure. Why is your work/studies important? South Africa’s breastfeeding rates are low, and breastfeeding is a cost-effective, life-saving intervention. Infants born from mothers living with HIV are at a greater risk of undernutrition and some mothers do not breastfeed due to fear of vertical HIV transmission, despite the many benefits of breastfeeding. I determined and compared the growth patterns in relation to feeding practices (dietary intake, food frequently consumed, breastmilk composition fed, food groups and dietary diversity) and haemoglobin levels of infants exposed and unexposed to maternal HIV infection in a peri-urban area in Gauteng. Nutrition education and counselling were given to the mothers during data collection and recommendations on appropriate feeding were made. The work was also presented at national and international congresses with an article published in an international journal. Nutrition education and counselling is a cost-effective strategy to prevent undernutrition and increase the breastfeeding rates in our country, especially in high HIV prevalent provinces. Limited research is available on this topic and collecting and analysing detailed feeding practices data, and having a similar sample size between the exposed and unexposed infants, are some of the strengths of my PhD study. Analysing the breastmilk composition of trace elements and comparing the results of mothers is another strength of my PhD as most researchers focus on the macronutrients and the trace elements that are important for optimal growth and development of infants. Including repeated measurements on growth such as the five Z-scores: length-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, head-for-age and mid-upper-arm-circumference, and using age-corrected and sex-specific tools. What are some of your proudest academic achievements? The School of Health Care Sciences community engagement award; newsletter publications at the community engagement University of Pretoria; and publishing an article in the nutrients journal (with two citations already after publication in 2023). Presenting research findings and being awarded the UP DRI UCDP funds for PhD-related costs. Not to forget my PhD being conferred by the interim VC at UP in the spring graduation ceremony (May 2024). The rights to this article (content and images) are reserved by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. This work is licenced under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED) license: this implies that the article may be republished (shared) on other websites, but the article may not be altered or built upon in any way. Credit must be given to the National Research Foundation and a link provided back to the original article. Share on Facebook Share on X
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