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Sandra Capra AM joined the Faculty of Health Sciencesand then the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciencesi 2008 as professor of nutrition. Professor Capra received her BSc(Hons) and Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics from Sydney University, her MSocSc from the University of Birmingham and her PhD from the University of Queensland.

After more than 15 years in professional practice in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand Prof Capra entered academia full time. Professor Capra has a strong commitment to allied health professions and has served three terms as President of the Dietitians Association of Australia, has been a member of the Council of Pro Vice Chancellors and Deans of Health Sciences and served on many national policy making committees including the Nutrient Reference Values Steering Committee and the Dietary Guidelines Working Party of the National Health and Medical Research Council. She served sixteen years as Chair of the Board of Directors (President) of the International Confederation of Dietetic Associations from 2004-2016. She was an Independent Director of Health Workforce Australia 2010-2014.

Professor Capra is an expert on allied health in general and nutrition and dietetics curricula and competencies in particular and reviews educational programs both in Australia and overseas. In early 2017 she was appointed Executive Director of the International Commission for Dietetics and Nutrition Education and Accreditation, implementing an international program of competency development and program accreditaion. She is regularly invited to speak on the topic of educational standards, quality and competence. Professor Capra has been recognised for her service to nutrition and dietetics education and research by being appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003, a Fellow of the Dietitians Association of Australia (the first appointed) and elected to life membership of the DAA. She was named one of the Westpac/Financial Review "100 Women of Influence" in the global category in 2014.

Professor Capra designed and developed the Master of Dietetics Studies, an innovative and distinctive program within Australia, and sought and achieved accreditation for this novel program as well as more recently its reaccreditation. Graduates are complimented on their skill and employability.

She has acted as a consultant to governments, in the area of foodservices for hospitals, detention centres, custodial facilities as well as serving on numerous governent committees at the state and national level.

Prior to her move to the University of Queensland she was the Head of School, School of Health Sciences and Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, NSW. Before that she was at QUT for 15 years.

She was appointed Emeritus Professor in January 2019, and retains an active interest in research and mentoring.

Research Interests

Professor Capra has positioned UQ as a leader in research in nutrition. Her personal research interests focus on nutrition and dietetics practice, food and nutrition policy and quality outcomes for food and nutrition services in a variety of settings. Much of her work focuses on the development of tools to use in practice and developing systems for quality improvements and outcomes measurements of service delivery. Studies include nutrition service delivery models, best practice, tools development, measurement in dietetics and outcomes research in dietetics, staffing and efficacy. This is not limited to clinical fields, but includes other domains of policy and public health and service delivery and alllied health more generally. Professor Capra was a principal investigator on the Department of Health and Ageing “Implementing best practice nutrition and hydration support in Residential aged care” which was part of the national “Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care” program. She has developed tools now used across Australia such as the Malnutrition Screening Tool, the Meal Assessment Tool, and the Acute Care Patient Satisfaction with Foodservice Questionnaire. many of her former students have proceeded to key leadership roles in Australia and overseas.

Geoffrey Cleghorn is Deputy Head of the School of Medicine, Director International of the School of Medicine and Professor of Paeditrics

Professor Cleghorn is a graduate of the University of Queensland Medical School and undertook postgraduate training in paediatric gastroenterology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto Canada. Following his training he entered academic practice within University of Queensland at the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane.

Professor Cleghorn has published more than 90 manuscripts and book chapters and is a seasoned lecturer and public speaker on a number of infant related issues including perinatal and paediatric nutrition. His research interests include the use of energy expenditure and body composition analysis in a number of disease states including chronic liver disease, cystic fibrosis, and general nutritional rehabilitation. He has been the recipient of a number of research grants from national and international granting bodies including the Australian Research Council, the National Health & Medical Research Council from Australia and the National Institutes of Health from the USA.

Professor Cleghorn has developed an extensive network of associations throughout Asia and hence has a very high profile within this region. He is a frequent, invited visitor to countries throughout Asia and has spoken on a number of nutritional and gastrointestinal topics during these visits. This profile has enabled Professor Cleghorn to be formally appointed to the Academic Teaching Staff of the Department of Child Health, University of Indonesia as a visiting Professor, to become involved in several multinational trials in S.E. Asia, and has seen a number of trainees travel to Brisbane to further their paediatric gastrointestinal and nutritional studies with him and his colleagues.

Professor Cleghorn has been a member of the well respected, Queensland Liver Transplant Service from its inception in 1985 until the present day. He has been involved in many of the historical and seminal advances in paediatric liver transplantation including the world’s first successful living related donor liver transplant and the development of the liver cut down technique now universally known as the “Brisbane Technique”. Research from the QLTS has highlighted the importance of nutrition in these patients and again is now acknowledged internationally.

Professor Cleghorn has had extensive collaborative experience with all levels of industry from the conduct of commissioned trials for regulatory approval to board room advice. He has been on the medical advisory boards of the peak meat industry body in Australia and Gerber Australasia. He has had extensive experience within the broader Asian region providing advice to the regional medical office for Mead Johnson Nutritionals.

His memberships include the Queensland Paediatric Society, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the North American Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition. In addition, he also holds the following positions:

• President – The Asian and Pacific Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition
• President - The Federation of International Societies of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
• Executive Councilor, The International Pediatric Transplantation Association
• Editorial Board, Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
• Editorial Board, Bailiere’s Clinical Gastroenterology
• Visiting Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia

Dr Peter Collins is a Senior Dietitian at Mater Health in Brisbane, where he covers patient caseloads across gastroenterology and general medicine in both the public and private hospitals. Peter is a UK trained Registered Dietitian (RD) and an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) with a PhD in Clinical Nutrition from the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Southampton (June 2013). Peter’s research interests are around the detection and management of disease-related malnutrition, with a specific interest in the nutritional management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Peter is on the editorial board of the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics and was recently awarded an appointment to the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) Faculty as an Early Career member. He is regularly invited to present at international conferences on the topic of malnutrition and nutrition support and has taught as part of the prestigious Life-Long Learning (LLL) international program in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism for health care professionals including doctors, dietitians, nurses and pharmacists.

Dr Cuffe is a systems physiologist focused on understanding the complex changes to maternal physiology that occur during pregnancy and the impact of pregnancy dysfunction of programmed cardiovascular, metabolic and renal disease in offspring. Dr Cuffe has a particular focus on understanding the role of the placenta and its hormones in mediating both maternal and offspring disease. He is most recognised for his research investigating how maternal stress, thyroid dysfunction, hypoxia or altered nutrition affect placental development and program disease in the mother after pregnancy as well as her offspring. Dr Cuffe has an exceptional track record and is excited to take new honours and PhD students into his research laboratory.

Katherine Cullerton is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health. She joined the School in 2018 following postdoctoral research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK, where her work explored the question of whether, and under what circumstances, it is appropriate for nutrition researchers to engage with the food industry. Katherine’s current research focuses on understanding why evidence does not consistently inform public policy. In particular, she examines the strategies employed by the corporate sector to influence policy and investigates how public health advocates can more effectively shape policy outcomes in Australia, with a special emphasis on the roles of framing and public opinion.

A/Prof Cullerton is also the academic lead for external engagement for the School of Public Health.

Dr Brooke Devlin is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD), Advanced Sports Dietitian (AdvSD), and Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland. She holds qualifications in exercise science (BExSci) and nutrition and dietetics (MNutrDiet) and completed her PhD in Sports Nutrition at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Dr Devlin’s research focuses on diet and exercise strategies to optimise blood glucose control and metabolic health, including chrono-nutrition and time-restricted eating. She also maintains an active interest in sports nutrition, currently working with the Queensland Academy of Sport on projects investigating energy requirements in elite cyclists, alongside broader research into nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviours of athletes.

She is currently working with a large multidisciplinary team across Australia on the CARE-T2D project, co-developing an innovative telehealth intervention that integrates continuous glucose monitoring into dietetic practice, in collaboration with Abbott Diabetes Care. Dr Devlin also partners with Logan Healthy Living to co-design a culturally appropriate diabetes prevention program for women who have experienced gestational diabetes, with a focus on improving access and outcomes in rural and remote communities. Her research aims to deliver practical, evidence-based solutions that empower individuals and health professionals to improve metabolic health and performance outcomes.

Professor Mike Gidley is Director of the Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences (CNAFS) at the University of Queensland, Australia. The Centre is part of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) in conjunction with the Queensland Government. Prof Gidley’s research is focussed on structure – function relationships in biopolymer assemblies such as starch granules and plant cell walls. This has led to the detailed characterisation of starch and dietary fibre digestion/fermentation in vitro and in vivo, with the understanding generated leading to opportunities for optimising nutritional value of foods and feeds. He is also a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls.

Professor Gidley was trained in chemistry at the Universities of London (BSc) and Cambridge (PhD), and worked on food-related research for more than twenty years in Unilever’s R+D laboratory at Colworth House in the UK, beginning as a research scientist and culminating as the Group Leader for Plant-based Foods and Ingredients, before joining UQ in 2003.

Professor Gidley’s major research interest is the linking of plant molecular structures to macroscopic properties with relevance to plant-based food properties. In particular, he is interested in investigating polysaccharide assemblies such as plant cell walls and starch granules, particularly the way these structures are assembled in nature and then disassembled during manufacturing and later during digestion. His field of research involves the use of spectroscopic, microscopic and materials analyses of natural materials and model systems. Insights into structure-property relationships are obtained, that can then be used to provide targets for raw materials and processes with enhanced food and nutritional properties.

Dr Daniel Liang-Dar Hwang is a genetic epidemiologist and statistical geneticist by training. His research interests include sensory nutrition, causal modelling, and personalized nutrition. Dr Hwang applies statistical models to big data to understand genetic and environmental factors contributing to individual differences in taste and olfactory perception and their relationship with dietary behaviour and chronic conditions (See his research on taste perception in The Conversation). He develops methods for increasing statistical power for gene discovery, estimating intergenerational causal relationships, and personalized intervention. He also works with clinicians to investigate impaired chemosensory perception in cancer patients and COVID-19.

Daniel has a B.Sc from the National Taiwan University, majoring in Biochemical Science and Technology, and an M.Biotech from the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation, he worked as a research technician in Danielle Reed's lab at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, where he first developed a keen interest in genetics and chemosensory perception. Later, he was awarded scholarships to complete an M.Sc in Nutrition at the University of Washington, under the supervision of Glen Duncan, and a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, under the supervision of Nicholas Martin and Margaret Wright. He then joined David Evans's group as a postdoc at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute (now the Frazer Institute). Dr Hwang is an ARC DECRA Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He is also an Affiliated Scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center.

Dr Hwang has published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. His work has been referred to in international health policy guidelines and a WHO report for the intervention of childhood obesity and in a global patent for personalized wine selection. He is on the editorial boards of BMC Medicine and Twin Research and Human Genetics. Dr Hwang is a Leadership Team member of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, a global initiative to understand the relationship between smell loss and COVID-19 and foster the advancement of chemosensory science. He currently drives an international collaborative project to investigate the impact of COVID-19 vaccinations on long-COVID symptoms. Dr Hwang is a member of the National Committee for Nutrition of the Australian Academy of Science. He contributes to implementing the decadal plan for the science of nutrition in Australia.

I am a consultant Accredited Practising Dietitian and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Online Health. I have a PhD in technology-supported lifestyle interventions and delivering dietary education to improve people’s dietary self-management. My research program focuses on technology-enabled health systems and interventions for improving patient-centred care in chronic disease and simplifying nutrition communication for clinicians and people living with chronic conditions. I work in private practice, primarily providing professional consultancy services for kidney nutrition. I also provide consultation for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. You can learn more about my private practice here - https://www.mynutritionclinic.com.au/renal-dietitian/

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interests are in 1) Nutrition & Dietetics – primarily diet quality and focusing on methods to improve diet quality in people with chronic kidney disease and other complex chronic conditions; 2) Health Service Delivery & 3) Digital Health – specifically focused on preparing to workforce, codesigning and testing technology-assisted interventions to deliver lifestyle interventions. My current work focuses on technology-enabled health systems and interventions for improving patient-centred care in chronic disease and simplifying nutrition communication for clinicians and people living with chronic conditions.

Sheleigh Lawler is a health psychology expert, with research interests in understanding and intervening on health behaviours, particularly the psychosocial sequelae in relation to disease and intervention outcomes. Her breadth of knowledge across public health, health promotion and health psychology allows for a unique perspective, particularly on understanding the importance of communication. Her work involves multi-disciplinary teams of researchers, industry partners, and government organisations.

Dr Hannah Mayr is an Advanced Accredited Practicing Dietitian and works as Principal Research Fellow for the Nutrition and Dietetics Department at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane. She collaborates with diverse teams of allied health and medical clinicians, clinician researchers, academics and consumers.

Dr Mayr has expertise in cardiometabolic disease prevention and management and her work has a focus on evidence-based healthy dietary patterns. In this area her interests and experience include dietary intake assessment and intervention design; randomised controlled and feasibility trials; telehealth and mhealth; qualitative interviews; implementation science and consumer engagement.

Dr Mayr received the Dietitians Australia Early Career Researcher Award in 2018 for her PhD work investigating a Mediterranean diet intervention in people with coronary artery disease and its impact on the Dietary Inflammatory Index. She has recently led a project focused on translating a Mediterranean-style, heart healthy diet approach into routine care for people with type 2 diabetes or heart disease. Dr Mayr has also collaborated on projects focused on improving outcomes for people with kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, liver transplant, and fatty liver disease through nutrition assessment or intervention.

Dr Mayr is an experienced university Lecturer and research supervisor in dietetics practice and research and is committed to research capacity building of dietitians and allied health professionals.

Gita Mishra AO is Professor of Life Course Epidemiology at the University of Queensland (UQ) and is internationally recognised for her research on women’s reproductive health and chronic conditions across life. She is the founding Director of the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research (AWaGHR) Centre at UQ with a 40-strong multidisciplinary team, including 12 PhD students, that has arisen out of her leadership of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Women and Non-Communicable Diseases (2019-2025). Professor Mishra is currently an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (Level 3; 2022-2031), having previously been awarded with an ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2017) and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (2017-2021).

Within the AWaGHR Centre, she is Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), a national flagship study since 1996 with data on over 57,000 women in four age cohorts. She leads a series of NHMRC and MRFF funded studies, including on endometriosis, menstrual disorders, and perimenopause and menopause, that place strong emphasis on the life course and the inclusion of women from First Nations’ communities and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The Centre also hosts InterLACE, the International collaboration for a Life course Approach to reproductive health and Chronic disease Events which Professor Mishra has developed and led since 2012. InterLACE now combines data from more than 1.2M women in 35 studies in 19 countries and has become a leading resource for robust evidence on women’s health. As a result, she regularly presents findings from InterLACE and from the AWaGHR Centre at international policy meetings, including as an expert contributor at the UN Commission for the Status of Women in New York and at the WHO in Geneva.

Over her career, Professor Mishra has authored over 500 scientific papers, invited reviews, book chapters, and evidence reports. She is lead editor of “A Life Course Approach to Women’s Health”, a key text that presents the latest research in the field and is part of the ground-breaking Life Course Series from Oxford University Press. She works extensively with governments, especially with Australian Department of Health and Aged Care. She led the 2018 evidence review for the inform the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030, which prioritised a life course approach. In 2023, she was scientific advisor to Queensland Health for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Strategy 2023-2032.

In her current role in supporting health policy implementation and research priorities, she is a founding member of the National Women's Health Advisory Council established by the Australian Government and is on the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Promotion Program. From 2023-2025 she was co-president of the 16th World Endometriosis Congress in Sydney and is currently Chair of the Queensland branch of the Heart Foundation.

In 2017, Professor Mishra became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and in 2025 she was appointed as President-elect for the World Endometriosis Society (2025-2027). She has received prestigious awards for her contribution to research and education, including the 2022 RANZCOG Award for Excellence in Women’s Health. In 2025, she was honoured with the title of Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University.

Dr Miura's research focus is the role of nutrition and dietary intake in prevention of chronic disease, especially skin cancer and cardiovascular disease. Dr Miura is currently leading projects to studying nutritional status and dietary intake among heart transplant recipients. Her research areas also extend to health of airline pilots in relation to radiation exposure.

Beatrice is a Postdoctoral Researcher with a special interest in behaviour change and digital health promotion. She has extensive experience in clinical trial management and evaluation. Following on from a Master’s Degree in Medical Science, her PhD was dedicated to the development of a mobile app that targeted adults’ physical activity and sleep health. The body of work she has contributed to has incorporated a wide range of research methods and study designs and her research outputs have added important knowledge to the field of multiple behaviour change and non-clinical sleep interventions. In more recent roles, Beatrice has worked on wide-scale implementation projects targeting the health and wellbeing of young children. Beatrice’s work is about maximising impact, both in the scientific field and out in the community by way of generating high quality data and improving equity of access to evidence-based resources.

Dr Stina Oftedal is an accredited practicing dietitian and postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Research Centre (QCPRRC). Stina completed her undergraduate degree at Queensland University of Technology in 2010, and completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2016. Stina's PhD explored the association of modifiable health behaviours (diet and physical activity) on growth and body composition in preschool-aged children with cerebral palsy, and this continues to be the focus of her postdoctoral work. She also has an interest in infant feeding and diet quality.

Professor Eugeni Roura is a nutritionist with interests in digestive physiology and gut health, chemosensory science (including taste and smell) and transgenerational mechanisms relevant to chickens, pigs and humans. Eugeni holds a Veterinary and PhD degrees from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a MPhil and post-doctoral appointments at the University of California (Davis). He developed a sixteen-year career in the feed and food industries before joining The University of Queensland (2010) where he currently leads the Nutrition & Chemosensory Science Group. The main current research areas in animal science include appetite modulation in chickens and pigs, nutrition interventions to boost embryonic/foetal development (including “in ovo”), and strategies to improve sustainability of chicken meat, egg and pork production. In human nutrition the focus is around food allergies and appendicitis. In 2011, Eugeni joined the UQ School of Biomedical Sciences as an Affiliated Lecturer. Since 2010 he has graduated 20 PhD students in Australia, published more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, and has been invited as keynote speaker to more than 50 national and international scientific meetings. He is currently serving as President of the World’s Poultry Science Association (Australia branch), Director of the AgriFutures Chicken Meat Consortium, and member of the National Committee for Nutrition (Australian Academy of Sciences), R&D and Education Committees of the Australasian Pork Research Institute Ltd., and the Federation of Oceania Nutrition Societies. He was the recipient of the Nutrition Society of Australia 2024 Medal award.

Dr Jacqueline Walker joined the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences in November 2015 and is working as a Senior Lecturer. She completed her doctoral degree in paediatric nutrition at The University of Queensland in March 2013, focusing on energy balance and body composition in children with cerebral palsy. Prior to this, she completed her undergraduate studies in exercise science and nutrition and dietetics at The University of Sydney. Jacqueline has worked as a dietitian for a number of years in acute hospital settings, community clinical settings and private practice, specialising in paediatric dietetics.

Olivia is a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics and Director of Teaching and Learning at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland.​

Her work sits at the intersection of nutrition science, Indigenous food systems, the microbiome and interprofessional practice, with a focus on nutritional resilience, food sovereignty and personalised nutrition. She leads a coherent program of research examining how dietary patterns and food environments shape microbiome resilience and health outcomes, and how this knowledge can be translated into culturally safe practice, education and policy.​

This program integrates culinary nutrition, chronic disease prevention, Indigenous bush‑food and food sovereignty projects, and AI‑enabled analysis to improve the lived experience of patients, students and communities. Olivia has published widely in nutrition science and dietetics and works in partnership with First Nations communities, industry and government to advance understanding of how food systems can support health, equity and cultural continuity.​

As a recognised leader in teaching and learning innovation, Olivia plays a central role in shaping the next generation of dietitians and health professionals. She integrates AI, cultural safety, Indigenous methodologies and inclusive design into her teaching to strengthen student confidence, belonging and leadership, intentionally bridging education, research and community engagement so that evidence supports community‑led solutions and real‑world impact across health systems and society.