Dr Danielle Schoenaker BSc, MSc, PhD
Research Fellow
Dr Danielle Schoenaker is an Epidemiologist and a Research Fellow in the School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education at the University of Southampton.
Danielle’s work is focussed on utilising data from routine health datasets and cohort studies to inform preventive interventions and recommendations for women and children. She is particularly passionate about health and wellbeing of women and men leading up to pregnancy, and how this may be improved to benefit the health of future mothers, fathers and their children.
Danielle has a background in Dietetics (BSc) and Nutritional and Public Health Epidemiology (MSc). In 2017, she was awarded her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, which examined the role of preconception dietary patterns in the development of maternal pregnancy complications.
Following completion of her PhD, Danielle worked as a Senior Research Officer at Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, to analyse data collected as part of studies that evaluated the effectiveness of tobacco control and alcohol harm-reduction mass media campaigns and policy changes. Danielle moved to the University of Wollongong, Australia, to continue her research in maternal and child health, and to contribute to supporting teaching capacity in epidemiology. As part of ongoing collaborations with researchers and clinicians at the Universities of Wollongong and Adelaide, Danielle continues to contribute to intervention and observational studies which aim to inform the prevention and treatment of diabetes in pregnancy, and improve outcomes of children born to mothers with a high-risk pregnancy.
Danielle’s current work at the University of Southampton is focussed on supporting the UK Preconception Partnership’s objectives towards optimising preconception health. She is responsible for analysis of national datasets of routinely-collected data to describe and monitor a set of preconception health indicators to provide a picture of the state of preconception health in England, and to examine relationships between preconception health and subsequent maternal and child health.
Qualifications:
- BSc, Nutrition and Dietetics, HAN University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2008
- MSc, Nutritional and Public Health Epidemiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands, 2011
- PhD, Epidemiology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 2017
Appointments held:
- 2012 – 2017 Research Officer, School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- 2017 – 2018 Senior Research Officer, Behavioural Science Division, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
- 2018 – 2020 Research Fellow, School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
- 2017 to date Adjunct Fellow, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
- 2020 to date Honorary Fellow, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
- 2020 to date Honorary Academic, Public Health England, UK
- 2020 to date Visiting Researcher, University of Surrey, UK
- 2020 to date Research Fellow, School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education, University of Southampton, UK