Shelly Kannuthurai loves cooking and she loves science, so a career that began with training as a registered dietician (RD) wasn’t too surprising. “It felt like a pretty good fit, it was a nice mix between the two,” she recalled. After completing her MPH and dietetic internship at the University of Washington, she became an RD in Seattle for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the federal nutritional program that aims to safeguard the health of low-income women and children at nutritional risk.
She moved to St. Louis in 2018 and joined the Center for Diabetes Translation Research (CDTR) at the Brown School as a research assistant, working with its director Debra Haire-Joshu. While managing the CDTR pilot program, she began splitting her time as the coordinator of the Implementation Science Scholars Institute (IS-2), a collaboration co-directed by Haire-Joshu and Ross Brownson at the PRC. Now the senior research manager for the CDTR, she will continue to support IS-2 until the program wraps up in December. At CDTR, she’s focused on looking at the overall operations of the center and managing research that has a national reach, with 115 faculty across the country.
Kannuthurai’s work at IS-2 had the benefit of connecting her with the entire PRC team, as well as giving her an introduction to dissemination & implementation science. “It’s been a close-up view of what people are thinking about in implementation science research and an opportunity to work with an incredibly talented team,” she said. “There’s something special about getting to see the up-and-coming scholars, along with senior faculty who wrote the book on D&I.”
Work as a research manager wasn’t what she had in mind initially, but it’s worked out surprisingly well, she said. “I wouldn’t have pictured myself as doing this coming out of grad school, but it’s a match I really like,” she said. “I’m a ’behind the scenes’ person, so being able to support others, think about operations, and the structure of what we’re building as a research center is really interesting to me. Being able to have those connections with teams at the PRC and the larger public health community at WashU has made it really enjoyable.”
Meanwhile, St. Louis has become the favorite city of Kannuthurai and her husband, Vijay, a rheumatologist, who live in Richmond Heights. “It feels like a good mix between big city and small town,” she said. “We love the parks, the food and art culture, and its rich history.”