Rate My Professor Kiri Sharp

Kiri Sharp serves as a research dietitian at the Edgar National Centre for Diabetes and Obesity Research within the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago. She completed a Bachelor of Science at Massey University, followed by a Master of Dietetics at the University of Otago in 2013, where her thesis examined The New Zealand Coeliac Health Survey, focusing on prevalence, diagnosis, and management challenges associated with coeliac disease. In 2020, she earned her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Otago with a dissertation titled Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): Nutrition triggers and treatment approaches, investigating dietary factors contributing to liver fat accumulation and potential interventions.

Sharp's research specializations center on clinical nutrition, particularly in metabolic disorders such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, coeliac disease, and prediabetes. She leads investigations into dietary triggers for NAFLD through the Trigger study, which assesses the impact of hypercaloric diets featuring high fat and refined carbohydrate intake compared to isocaloric diets on liver fat content in healthy-weight women, utilizing proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liver function tests. Her contributions to the New Zealand Coeliac Health Survey highlight ongoing challenges with gluten-free diet adherence and diagnostic delays, especially in children. Additional work evaluates primary care nursing-led dietary interventions for prediabetes and explores goal-setting strategies for weight loss in adults recently diagnosed with the condition. Key publications include 'Coeliac disease and the gluten-free diet in New Zealand: The New Zealand Coeliac Health Survey' (2014), 'The effectiveness of a primary care nursing-led dietary intervention for prediabetes: A mixed methods pilot study' (2017), 'Is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease a reflection of what we eat or simply how much we eat?' (2018), 'Diagnostic delays and treatment challenges in children with coeliac disease: The New Zealand Coeliac Health Survey' (2019), and 'Exploring the role of goal setting in weight loss for adults recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes' (2020). Collaborating with researchers like Associate Professor Michael Schultz and Dr. Kirsten Coppell, her publications have accumulated over 100 citations, advancing understanding of nutrition's role in preventing and managing diet-related diseases.