Professor Hodgson’s research program encompasses a suite of projects with the aim of increasing the intake of healthy plant foods in the community. His research generates evidence for how specific plant foods and their components contribute to human health. It also explores new approaches to support meaningful and achievable dietary change.

View Jonathan’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile

Josh is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow. His research focusses on the convergence between bone and vascular biology, in particular vascular calcification. This research seeks to identify individuals with clinically unrecognised disease so that early nutritional and lifestyle intervention can be implemented to prevent progression to heart attacks and strokes.

View Josh’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile

Professor Amanda Devine’s research has focused on high quality randomised controlled trials to better understand how diet and lifestyle affects bone, vascular and gut health. Current nutrition research areas include supporting food literacy in adults and children, food security, food environments and the influence of plant based diet on gut health, gestational diabetes and ulcerative colitis.

View Amanda’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Abadi’s research seeks to understand why and how cardiovascular disease increases the risk of falls and fracture with the ultimate goal of developing better ways to prevent this happening.

View Abadi’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile

Annemarie (Annie) is an experienced registered nurse/midwife who is passionate about Evidence-based practice and translating research into healthcare policy. Her focus is on improving ways to support evidence-based practice through the development of contemporary clinical practice guidelines and policy that support evidence-informed care. Annie’s research focus is action-based, aiming to include clinicians in the research process to ensure outcomes are both practical and relevant to clinical areas. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) and a member of the 2022 ACN Policy Fellowship Program.

View Annie’s research projects and publications on her ECU profile

Ben’s research focuses on investigations into the cardio-pulmonary protective effects of bioactive components of fruits and vegetables, with a particular interest in flavonoids.

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Background
Bianca is the Research Institute Officer at the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute. She has been with the Institute since 2021 and works closely with the NHIRI team to support the administrative aspects of the Institute.

She has over 15 years of experience in various administrative roles within private and not-for-profit organisations.

Dr Cassandra Smith is a highly passionate clinician-researcher, an Accredited Exercise Physiologist (>10 years’ clinical experience) and Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute, Edith Cowan University. Cassandra received her PhD from Victoria University (2022) which gave her a deep understanding on how the skeleton is regulated across the lifespan. Her current research now focusses on understanding why as we age, we lose bone, yet it accumulates in our blood vessels. She has a specific interest in understanding the role of menopause on this relationship, and whether this may potentially explain the sex disparity in cardiovascular disease.

View Cassandra’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Dr Catherine Bondonno is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research, Edith Cowan University, Australia and the Emeritus Professor Lawrie Beilin AO Research Fellow of the Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation, Australia.

View Catherine’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Cheryl has over 20 years’ experience in management in both the corporate sector and at UWA and ECU. In her role at ECU her focus includes the strategic and operational management of the Institute, identifying areas for growth, and innovation and collaboration across and external to the Institute. Through various initiatives, her focus is to engage with Industry, Government and the wider community for partnership and funding opportunities for wider community benefit.

Dr Claire Pulker is a public health nutritionist with over 30 years’ professional experience. She is a Senior Research Fellow in the Food Environments Team, responsible for overseeing the development and management of a range of research projects.

View Claire’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

David Suter is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Science (Computing and Security).  He leads a team carrying out leading research in computer vision and big-data analysis. His special expertise includes robust statistical fitting, computational geometry and machine learning.

View David’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile

Gina Trapp is a Professor of Food and Nutrition Environments within the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute at Edith Cowan University where she leads the Food Environments Team. She is also a Stan Perron People Fellow, a Honorary Research Fellow at the Telethon Kids Institute and a Registered Public Health Nutritionist recognised by the Nutrition Society of Australia. Gina was a former ARC DECRA Fellow and NHMRC ECR Fellow at the University of Western Australia.

View Gina’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Jack’s research focuses on developing and evaluating strategies to provide effective and accessible exercise and diet support for cancer survivors and those living with chronic disease.

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Dr Lauren Blekkenhorst is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Emerging Leadership Fellow (EL1) and a National Heart Foundation of Australia Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute at Edith Cowan University. She is a Registered Nutritionist (2013-current) with the Nutrition Society of Australia and was awarded her PhD in July 2019 from The University of Western Australia. She has expertise in nutritional epidemiology and dietary intervention studies and leads an internationally recognised research program to better understand the cardiovascular health effects of specific vegetables and their bioactive constituents, as well as finding new and improved ways to increase vegetable consumption within the population to reduce the burden associated with cardiovascular disease.

View Lauren’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Leesa is a qualitative methodologist in public health. She works on multi-disciplinary projects to promote health, reduce health inequities and bring about change for the social good.

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Dr Liezhou Zhong has a PhD degree in Food Science and Nutrition. His research focuses on understanding how novel food processing such as 3D food printing affects human nutrition and health, and how food technology might enable adaptation to the changing environment and shifting diet. He established the Future Foods & Digital Gastronomy Laboratory at Edith Cowan University and is the lead researcher of the lab.

View Liezhou’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile.

Marc co-leads the Discovery & Excellence Theme at NHIRI and is the Deputy Lead for the Disorders of Mineralisation Research Group at ECU. He currently holds Fellowships from the Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation as well as the Future Health & Innovation Fund, Department of Health (WA). Marc’s research program examines the role of nutrition, exercise & its impact on human performance & disease progression, specifically musculoskeletal function/structure; key risk factors for osteoporosis, sarcopenia, falling & fracture in older populations.

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Mary Kennedy, PhD, ACSM-EP, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Implementation Science at the Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute at Edith Cowan University. Her research focuses on understanding how to integrate exercise into oncology care pathways. She serves on the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Exercise is Medicine® Moving Through Cancer Task Force. She is also the founder of the Implementation Science Research Hub in Western Australia. Exercise is more than a career for Dr. Kennedy, it is a fundamental part of her daily life. She is a runner who has completed 17 marathons and trained more than 600 people to complete one of their own.

View Mary’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Myles is a Sports and Exercise Physiotherapist and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. Myles’ research involves investigating the drivers of pain and impairment in people with lower-limb musculoskeletal injury and disability as well as novel neuroscience interventions to address these impairments.

View Myles’ research projects & publications on his ECU profile

The overarching focus of Nicola’s research is to explore and understand the role that plant bioactives – particularly polyphenols, nitrate, and vitamin K – play in the prevention of chronic diseases.

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Paula is an Associate Professor within the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute at Edith Cowan University. She is a former Healthway Research Fellow and co-director of the Australian Urban Design Research Centre at the University of Western Australia. Her research studies the impact of built and natural environments and urban planning policies on physical, social and mental health and wellbeing outcomes. She is highly skilled in spatial analytics and the use of geographic information systems and the development of measurement methods of urban design features and public open space.

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Rae-Chi Huang is a practicing paediatrician and researcher who has dedicated her working life to understanding and trying to make a difference with respect to treatment and prevention of childhood non-communicable disease.  The recent pandemic of overweight/obese children accompanied with soaring prevalence of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes has prompted Rae-Chi to investigate E-Health interventions and the pathogenesis of cardiovascular and related metabolic disease with a particular emphasis on their origins in pregnancy and early childhood.

Rae-Chi’s research career has been supported by multiple NHMRC fellowships and funding. She currently leads NHMRC project “A two generation population study of obesity epigenetics” and the Australian arm of the EU “Early-life stressors and LifeCycle health”.

View Rae-Chi’s research projects & publications on her ECU profile

Ros’s research focusses on improving the food environment in childcare for better health & developmental outcomes in the first 2,000 days of life.

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Simone is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute, School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University (ECU). Her research focusses in investigating the link between diet, stress, mental health and cardiovascular disease. In particular, she aims to develop new strategies to increase fruit and vegetable intake, alleviate stress levels and improve mental and heart health. Her research long-term aim is to better understand how and why greater consumption of fruit and vegetables (and its constituents) improves mental health and whether these improvements are due to better blood vessel health.

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Therese is the Discipline Lead of Dietetics at Edith Cowan University, where she lectures in the Masters of Nutrition and Dietetics course, coordinates research projects and supervises students. She is a firm believer in the value of community consultation and producing practical and translatable research. Therese leads programs of research focused on supporting new mothers with breastfeeding, optimising the meal environment in early childhood, and exploring potential health benefits of dairy fat.

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Dr Gilani is a Research Fellow with Prof David Suter and Associate Prof Joshua Lewis. He is the Co-lead of the Technology and Innovation theme at ECU Nutrition and Health Innovation & Research Institute and a member of School of Science Centre for AI & ML (CAIML).

View Zulqarnain’s research projects & publications on his ECU profile