Dr Vicki Jenneson

Profile

Vicki is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in nutrition, public health and retail big data analytics. Vicki is a Research Fellow in the Leeds Institute of Medical Research (LIMR) and has affiliations with the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) and the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC).

After graduating with a degree in Nutrition from the University of Leeds in 2014, she worked in the charity sector offering tailored nutrition and lifestyle advice and managing a national community health grants programme. She went on to complete a Masters in Public Health at the University of York in 2017, then undertook a PhD with integrated Masters programme as part of the ESRC-funded Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Leeds. Vicki completed her PhD in 2022, which explored the utility of supermarket loylaty card transactions records as a source of popultaion dietary information. This involved exploring spatial patterns in purchase records and conducting a validation study comparing daily nutrient estimates from purchase records with self-reported consumption.

Research interests

Currently, Vicki is based in the Nutrition and Lifestyle Analytics (NALA) team as a postdoctoral Research Fellow. In her role, she works closely with supermarket retailers to design, run and analyse trials to inform ‘what works’ to nudge customers towards healthier and more sustainable choices whilst shopping. She enjoys cross-sector collaborations and has a passion for effective scientific communication which can catalyse real-world impact beyond academia.

Through her years working with retail nutrition data, Vicki has gained an appreciation for the challenges and complexities of food data systems. She has a vision for food digitalisation with integrated systems to improve decision-making for businesses and policymakers. In her recent work, she identified challenges for the implementation and enforcement of new (for 2022) legislation to restrict product placement for certain HFSS (High in Fat, Sugar or Salt) products in stores and their online equivalents. In response, she created the Nutrient Profile Model Calculator which offers a practical tool for easy, transparent and consistent implementation of the rules. 

Qualifications

• PhD Supermarket loyalty card transactions as a source of population dietary information
• MSc Data Analytics and Society
• MPH Master of Public Health
• BSc Nutrition (with Industrial placement)

Professional memberships

• ANutr Registered Associate Nutritionist
• Member of the Nutrition Society