Professor
Microbiology & Immunology
Otago University
New Zealand
Dr McConnell is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Current research in her group, as part of a wider Ag Research MBIE funded project (with Aladin Bekhit Food Science and Alan Carne Biochemistry), is primarily centered on the immunomodulatory effects of sheep milk in comparison with cow and goat milk, along with the microbiological status of the sheep milk. The sheep industry is a relatively young industry in New Zealand and the milk is predominantly used for cheese making in addition to some baby formula for the Chinese market. As part of the project she is co-supervising a PhD student Keegan Burrow from the Food Science Department who is investigating the bioavailability of minerals in sheep milk.
Applied immunology, medical microbiology, microbial pathogenesis