Our founder, Dr Claudine Matthews, is an award winning Consultant Dietitian, who was awarded the Dame Barbara Clayton Award 2024 for her innovating work developing dietetic policy and practice in sickle cell nutrition and has over 20 years of experience working as a dietitian in the UK, in an array of conditions. As founder of Sickle Cell Nutrition Academy (SCNA) a pioneering non-profit organisation, her sole purpose is to help people living with sickle cell disease to improve their quality of LIFE.

She has worked tirelessly over the last 10 years to raise awareness of sickle cell nutrition, during which time she wrote a number of articles published to raise awareness of sickle cell nutrition amongst her colleagues and other professionals, participated in the inaugural online Sickle Cell Nutrition Conference in 2021, lead on a mayoral Schools Education Campaign, alongside the mayor of the borough of Waltham Forest in 2021/22 and was invited to speak at a number of education seminars in the UK and US to both healthcare professionals, patients and carers on the topic of sickle cell nutrition.

Her doctoral research thesis, Co-developing a health literacy framework to integrate nutrition into standard care in Sickle Cell Disease, focussed on providing a blueprint framework providing components to promote the development and delivery of nutrition service provision in SCD, to improve patient access and outcomes of nutrition. Following the completion of her Professional Doctorate in December 2023, Dr Matthews was invited to speak at the Sickle Cell and thalassaemia All Party Parliamentary Group meeting at the Houses of Parliament on the 11th December 2023 and has written an article titled: The politics of nutrition in Sickle Cell Disease: improving access and outcomes, published in the Dietetics Today, the British Dietetic Association (BDA) professional magazine for dietitians. Dr Matthews is also leading on a pioneering NHSE Nutrition project in collaboration with sickle cell patients/carers to co-design nutritional resources and information to improve nutrition outcomes and promote self-management in sickle cell nutrition. The resources will contribute to addressing the knowledge and resources gap currently defining the nutrition landscape in SCD.