From 1998, until its closure in 2018, she was the director of the MRC's collaborative Centre for Human Nutrition Research (HNR) (latterly called the "Elsie Widdowson Laboratory").
[1] Her research group subsequently moved to the MRC Epidemiology Unit within the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine where she is Honorary Professor of Global Nutrition and Health.
She is involved in projects studying pregnant and lactating women, people living with HIV, children, adolescents and older persons in the UK, The Gambia, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, China, Bangladesh, India and South Africa.
[1][3] Prentice is the recipient of numerous honours, awards and prizes; she received the British Nutrition Foundation Prize in 2011, the Institut Candia's Laureate de Le Prix Scientifique in 1998, and the Robert and Edna Langholz Award for International Nutrition in 2004.
[4] On 7 December 2020, she delivered her Widdowson Award lecture entitled "Hard facts and misfits: essential ingredients of public health nutrition research".