Chair

Chair of the Cork Food Policy Council, Janas Harrington is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition and Director for the Bsc Public Health Sciences, School of Public Health UCC. She has an active research portfolio. Her research is focussed on studying the determinants of population diets and the association between diet patterns and chronic disease, including obesity. Her current work focusses on the impact of Government food policies on the healthiness of food environments. She has led successful national and European research projects. She is currently a work package leader for a EU-funded Policy Evaluation Network evaluating the effectiveness of existing policies for lifestyle interventions (https://www.jpi-pen.eu/). The work will produce for the first time an Irish Food Environment Policy Index benchmarking the Irish food environments against international best practice. At National level, she is a member of the Healthy Eating Subgroup and the Food Re-formulation subgroup of the Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group, convened by the Department of Health. She was recently appointed Chair of the Cork Food Policy Council. Her key aim in this position is to support the work of the Food Policy Council to work and to lead the development and implementation of a Food Strategy for Cork City.

CFPC Co-coordinator

Maria is the Administrative Coordinator of Cork Food Policy Council. Maria had a career in the arts for most of her life training as a classical musician, she later became a producer of professional plays, operas, musicals and performance theatre in Ireland and abroad. She managed St Patrick’s Day Parade for Cork City Council for several years and continues to manage bonfire night and other public events across the city. An abiding interest in nature and the environment led her gradually to move closer to working in this area. This is her third year as coordinator of SHEP Earth Aware and since 2018 she is the coordinator of Green Spaces for Health and the Cork Food Policy Council. Her specific areas of interest are in providing platforms for discussion and action around the climate crisis, protecting our natural environment and ecosystems, promoting self sufficiency in a urban setting and sustainability. She is particularly keen on community growing food initiatives and in locating more growing areas in Cork City.

Co-coordinator of the Healthy Cities

Denise is the Healthy Cities Co-coordinator in Cork City. Denise has worked as a researcher in the area of Public Health and has been employed in the area of health promotion for the past 12 years. Denise has worked in the areas of Schools Health Promotion, Physical Activity and Tobacco Control. In more recent years she has developed her understanding and commitment to community health promotion and has coordinated the health profile of Cork City in support of World Health Organisation recognition of Cork as a Healthy City.  Through the Healthy Cities structure Denise has developed skills to support the development of partnerships between and among the community, voluntary and statutory sectors in the area of health promotion.