Suparna is leading the Nutrition Department at The George Institute for Global Health, India, and has 27 years of experience as a clinical, academic, and research nutritionist. Before joining TGI, she served as the Professor and Head, Community Nutrition at Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi, Public Health Foundation of India. At TGI, she is actively engaged in research projects on food systems, their drivers, food security, food and nutrition policy, dietary diversity and nutritional status of women and children in vulnerable communities, and medical nutrition therapy for primary and secondary prevention of non-communicable diseases in India. She is leading the food systems arm of an NIHR-funded Global Health Research Centre for Non-Communicable Diseases and Environmental Change at TGI in partnership with Imperial College London. She is one of the co-principal investigators for a multi-centre trial to assess the effectiveness of an improved supplementary feeding program as take-home rations (under the Integrated Child Development Services, (ICDS,) for improving nutritional status in children under 3 years of age.
Suparna started her career as a clinical nutritionist. Her PhD research aimed at developing a counselling module comprising of a comprehensive health education package for the primary prevention of coronary artery diseases (CAD) in children with parental history of premature CAD. She has coordinated a clinical trial on nutritional supplementation in phenylketonuria with the Western Sydney Genetics Program at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. In the Indian Adaptation of Mediterranean Diet study, she is leading the intervention development component as well as the development of tools and protocols for diet and nutritional assessment.
She is an expert member of the steering committee for Public Health and Nutrition under the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. She has also served as a member of the task force formed by the Government of the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, to reduce maternal neonatal, and infant mortality and malnutrition in the state. She has served as a technical core group member for a multi-centre study to inform policy around community-based management of severe acute malnutrition in under 5 years old children in India