Meet the Team

Meet
the team

Professor Jonathan Hodgson

Jonathan Hodgson

Director / Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology +61 8 9224 0267 Joondalup

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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

Professor Jonathan Hodgson
Jonathan Hodgson
Director / Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology

Jonathan is the Director of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute and Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology for the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University.

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Josh Lewis

Research Program Lead / Associate Professor of Cardiometabolic Health +61 8 6304 4602 Joondalup

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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

Josh Lewis
Research Program Lead / Associate Professor of Cardiometabolic Health

Josh is the Research Program Lead for the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute and is supported by a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship.

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Abadi Gebre

Abadi Gebre

Research Fellow

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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.

Abadi Gebre
Abadi Gebre
Research Fellow

Abadi is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Amanda Devine

Associate Dean; Public Health and Occupational Health & Safety Professor Public Health and Nutrition +61 8 6304 5527 Joondalup

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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

Amanda Devine
Associate Dean; Public Health and Occupational Health & Safety Professor Public Health and Nutrition

Amanda is the Associate Dean of Public Health and OHS and Professor of Public Health Nutrition in the School of Medical and Health Sciences, at Edith Cowan University. Amanda is a member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Annie De Leo

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow +61 8 6304 3510 South-West

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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. Annemarie’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

Annie De Leo
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Annemarie (Annie) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) and a member of the 2022 ACN Policy Fellowship Program.

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Benjamin Parmenter

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

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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.

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

Benjamin Parmenter
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Ben is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Bianca Lovi

Research Institute Officer +61 8 6304 2065 Off Campus

 

 

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.

Bianca Lovi
Research Institute Officer

Bianca is the Research Institute Officer for the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Cassandra Smith

Associate Research Fellow Off Campus

ECU profile

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

Cassandra Smith
Associate Research Fellow

Cassandra is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research and an Accredited Exercise Physiologist.

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Catherine Bondonno

Senior Research Fellow +61 8 6304 4601 Joondalup

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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

Catherine Bondonno
Senior Research Fellow

Catherine is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research and is supported by a Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation, Emeritus Professor Lawrie Beilin AO Research Fellowship.

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Cheryl Croce

Strategic Initiatives & Operations Manager +61 8 6304 6781 Off Campus

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.

Cheryl Croce
Strategic Initiatives & Operations Manager

Cheryl is the Strategic Initiatives and Operations Manager for the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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David Suter

Professor of Computer Science +61 8 6304 6591 Joondalup

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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

David Suter
Professor of Computer Science

David is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Science (Computing and Security) and member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Jack Dalla Via

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow +61 8 6304 2015 Off Campus

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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.

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

Jack Dalla Via
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Jack is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Dr Lauren Blekkenhorst

Lauren Blekkenhorst

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow +61 8 6304 4604 Off Campus

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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

Dr Lauren Blekkenhorst
Lauren Blekkenhorst
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Lauren is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute. She is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Emerging Leadership Fellowship (EL1) and a National Heart Foundation of Australia Fellowship.

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Leesa Costello

Senior Lecturer Public Health +61 8 6304 5459 Joondalup

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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.

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

Leesa Costello
Senior Lecturer Public Health

Leesa is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health and a member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Liezhou Zhong

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Joondalup

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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.

Liezhou Zhong
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Liezhou is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute. He established the Future Foods & Digital Gastronomy Laboratory at Edith Cowan University and is the lead researcher of the lab.

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Marc Sim

Senior Research Fellow (08) 9328 8765 Joondalup

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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.

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

Marc Sim
Senior Research Fellow

Marc is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute and is the Deputy Lead for the Disorders of Mineralisation Research Group at Edith Cowan University. He is supported by Fellowships from the Royal Perth Hospital Research Foundation as well as the Future Health & Innovation Fund, Department of Health (WA).

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Mary Kennedy

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow +61 8 6304 6910 Off Campus

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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

Mary Kennedy
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Mary is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute. She is supported by a Department of Health WA, Future Health research and Innovation Fund Implementation Science Fellowship.

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Myles Murphy

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Off Campus

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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

Myles Murphy
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Myles is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute and an Australian Physiotherapy Association titled Sports and Exercise Physiotherapist.

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Dr Nicola Bondonno

Nicola Bondonno

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow +61 8 6304 2532 Off Campus

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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.

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

Dr Nicola Bondonno
Nicola Bondonno
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Nicola is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Rae-Chi Huang

Associate Professor Joondalup

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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

Rae-Chi Huang
Associate Professor

Rae-Chi is a member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute and practicing paediatrician.

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Ros Sambell

Ros Sambell

Research Fellow +61 8 6304 5424 Joondalup

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

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

Ros Sambell
Ros Sambell
Research Fellow

Ros is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Dr Simone Radavelli Bagatini

Simone Radavelli-Bagatini

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Off Campus

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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.

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

Dr Simone Radavelli Bagatini
Simone Radavelli-Bagatini
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Simone is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Therese O’Sullivan

Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics +61 8 6304 3529 Joondalup

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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.

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

Therese O’Sullivan
Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics

Therese is the Discipline Lead of Dietetics at Edith Cowan University and member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute.

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Zulqarnain Gilani

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (School of Science) +61 8 6304 3946 Joondalup

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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

Zulqarnain Gilani
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (School of Science)

Zulqarnain is a Research Fellow within the School of Science Centre for AI & ML (CAIML) and a member of the Nutrition & Health Innovation Research Institute. Dr Gilani was named the 2022 Raine/Robson Fellow.

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HDR students
we supervise

Afsah Saleem

afsahsaleem@gmail.com

Amanda Richardson

aricha16@our.ecu.edu.au

Ana Gowrea

a.gowrea@ecu.edu.au

Anjana Rajendra

arajend1@our.ecu.edu.au

Arooba Maqsood

amaqsood@our.ecu.edu.au

Caroline Hill

caroline.hill@ecu.edu.au

Carolyn Wakely

cwakely@our.ecu.edu.au

Cassandra Cuffe

ccuffe@our.ecu.edu.au

Catherine Properzi

c.properzi@ecu.edu.au

Cathy Latino

clatino0@our.ecu.edu.au

Charlene Grosse

charlene.grosse@ecu.edu.au

Chris Andrew

c.andrew@ecu.edu.au

Clare McCall

camccal0@our.ecu.edu.au

Colin Sylvester

csylves0@our.ecu.edu.au

Dorit Wielandt Erichsen

dow@cancer.dk

Eleonora Stojanoska

estojano@our.ecu.edu.au

Emma Mattock

econnol0@our.ecu.edu.au

Ensiyeh Keshtkaran

e.keshtkaran@ecu.edu.au

Evania Marlow

evaniam@our.ecu.edu.au

Hong Ngoc Thai Vo

hong.vo@ecu.edu.au

Gemma Jenkins

g.jenkins@ecu.edu.au

Jonathan Mendoza

j.mendoza@ecu.edu.au

Josephine-Lee Oddo

josephine.oddo@ecu.edu.au

Kathy Wang

r.wang@ecu.edu.au

Kathryn Webb

k.webb@ecu.edu.au

Liam Sherwood

lsherwo0@our.ecu.edu.au

Margaret Miller

m.miller@ecu.edu.au

Montana Dupuy

m.dupuy@ecu.edu.au

Negar Ghasemifard

n.ghasemifard@ecu.edu.au

Pratik Pokharel

ppokhar1@our.ecu.edu.au

Rebecca Voisin

RVOISIN@our.ecu.edu.au

Sally-Anne Doherty

sallyand@our.ecu.edu.au

Siu Min Tay

smtay@our.ecu.edu.au

Temitope Bolomope

tbolomop@our.ecu.edu.au

Tiffany King

tmking@our.ecu.edu.au

Trent Bozanich

tbozanic@our.ecu.edu.au

Vanessa Sutton

vsutton0@our.ecu.edu.au

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