Prof Charlton is a nutritional epidemiologist who is Public Health Nutrition domain leader in the Nutrition & Dietetics programme, School of Medicine. She works at the interface between clinical care, primary care and public health and has extensive international experience in research into translation of research into policy. Her research interests include diet and lifestyle interventions across the lifespan, including ageing in developing countries. Her work on iodine nutrition spans from the role of iodine fortification and supplementation on pregnancy outcomes to the link between cognition and iodine in older adults. On a population level, Karen works on strategies to lower blood pressure and was instrumental in providing evidence for mandatory regulation for salt target levels in various foods in South Africa.