The CPHN Team

The Centre team comprises a group of professionals (most employed part-time by the Centre) with skills in nutritional epidemiology, dietary assessment research methods, food and nutrition monitoring and surveillance, policy and program planning and evaluation.

Professor Ian Caterson

Co-director, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition and Boden Professor of Human Nutrition, University of Sydney

AM, MBBS (Hons I), BSc (Med, Hons I), PhD (Sydney), FRACP

Ian Caterson is an endocrinologist with internationally-recognised expertise in the causes and treatment of obesity. He has held the position of Boden Professor of Human Nutrition since 1997 and is Head of the newly formed Institute of Obesity, Nutrition & Exercise at the University of Sydney. Ian is a collaborator in the SSWAHS Diabetes Prevention Program and a key member of the SSWAHS Adult Obesity Working Party. In 2007 he was also Deputy Chair of Senator Barnett’s Healthy Lifestyle Forum to Help Combat Childhood Obesity.

Previously, Ian was head of the School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences (2004–2006) and was Senior Staff Specialist and Director of Clinical Endocrinology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and a Clinical Associate Professor. He graduated in Medicine with First Class Honours from the University of Sydney and holds the degrees of BSc(Med) with First Class Honours and Doctor of Philosophy from that University. Ian is married with three children.

As a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford with Professor Sir Philip Randle he held an NHMRC Applied Health Science Fellowship.

His research interests have been in insulin resistance and the causes and treatment of obesity. He has held NHMRC research funding since 1984. He has over 120 publications in scientific journals and books. He is a past President of both the Australian Diabetes Society and the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity. He was a member of the NHMRC working party on the prevention of overweight and obesity and chaired the National Obesity Prevention Group for the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. He is on the management committee of the International Obesity Task Force and a regional advisor on Obesity for WHO. He is currently regional vice-president (Asia-Oceania) for the International Association for the Study of Obesity. He was the Chair of the Organising Committee for ICO 2006 held here in Sydney.

Link to publications/academic profile from the University of Sydney website.

Dr Tim Gill

Co-director, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition and Principal Research Fellow, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney

BSc (Hons), GradDipDiet, PhD (Deakin)

Tim is a public health nutritionist with 25 years experience in government departments, health agencies, community setting and academic departments. Tim wears many hats – he is a co-director of the Centre, as well as principal research fellow within the University of Sydney’s Human Nutrition Unit. He is also the Executive Officer for the Australasian Society of Obesity (ASSO) and Regional coordinator of the Asia-Pacific International Obesity Task Force, managing the research and policy associated with obesity issues within Australasia and the Asia-Pacific regions.

Tim has authored several key reports on obesity for Australian State and Federal Government departments as well as national and international agencies and has served on a number of World Health Organization expert committees on obesity and chronic disease. He is on numerous expert committees and working groups, nationally and internationally, and regularly consults on issues relating to the prevention and management of obesity.

Tim has authored over 30 original papers and book chapters on nutrition, health promotion and obesity. He serves on a number of national and international committees relating to obesity and health and is a referee for over 10 major scientific publications.

His current projects include:

• The relationship between adiposity and ill-health in Asian ethnic groups
• The development of national action plans for the overweight in Pacific Islands
• The evaluation of public health strategies for the management of obesity in Australia communities
• Improving training options for healthcare workers in obesity care

Link to publications/academic profile from the University of Sydney Website.

Dr Vicki Flood

Centre Coordinator and Nutritional Epidemiologist, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition

BAppSc (Brisbane), GradDipNutr&Diet (QUT), MPH (UNSW), PhD (Sydney), APD (Accredited Practicing Dietitian)

Vicki is an experienced nutritional epidemiologist who has conducted work and research in the public health field over the last ten years, and brings a background of clinical dietetics to this experience. Vicki works with NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition, Centre for Overweight and Obesity and Centre for Vision Research. She has conducted research into a wide range of public health nutrition issues, such as overweight and obesity, fruit and vegetable intake, food and nutrition monitoring, eating habits and health aging, nutrition and eye disease, and nutrients of particular interest include folate and vitamin B12, carotenoids, fatty acids and glycemic index. The last few years has seen the development of collaborative links with other research groups, such as the SAX Institute and Newcastle University, including research to support indigenous health, especially related to reducing risk of obesity and diabetes.

Vicki has contributed to the work of several national and state organisations, such as Food Standards Australia New Zealand, providing information about folate and vitamin B12 research (as a member of the Folate Scientific Advisory Group); and NSW Health, providing recommendations about methods to assess dietary habits in children and adults.

Vicki supervises a number of research students including:

Associate supervisor of PhD students:

• Flavia Fayet "Health status of young adult women"
• Josephine Gwynn (Newcastle University) "Food Intake and Physical Activity in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Rural Children"

Link to publications/academic profile from the University of Sydney website.

Dr Anna Rangan

Nutritional Epidemiologist, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition

BSc (Griffith University), GradDipNutrDiet (QUT), PhD (Curtin)

Dr Anna Rangan is a nutritional epidemiologist with the Centre. Her current research interests include food consumption patterns in childhood and adulthood, the role of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods in the development of obesity, and trends in food consumption and portion sizes. Anna has experience in conducting secondary analyses of large dietary survey data sets including the 1995 National Nutrition Survey. She works closely with biostatistical trainees appointed to the Centre on a number of nutritional epidemiology projects.

Anna teaches dietary assessment methods to nutrition students and provides specialist technical input to various agencies on nutrition monitoring and food standards. Prior to her appointment at the Centre, Anna worked in clinical and community dietetics, as well as in breast cancer research. She was awarded a PhD in Public Health from Curtin University, Perth in 1998, examining factors affecting iron status in young women.

Link to publications/academic profile from the University of Sydney website.

Ms Bridget Kelly

Research Dietitian, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition

BSc (Hons Sydney)

Bridget Kelly is a research dietitian, who joined the centre in May 2006. After completing a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition) Honours degree at the University of Sydney in 2003, Bridget worked in the field of clinical nutrition before moving into public health nutrition research. She is currently undertaking a Masters of Public Health at the University of Sydney. Bridget now works at the Centre for Public Health Nutrition, the Centre for Overweight and Obesity and The Cancer Council NSW.

Bridget’s main research interests focus on food marketing and its effect on childhood overweight and obesity, and measuring children’s dietary intakes. She has also tutored nutrition students in dietary assessment.

Mr Jimmy Louie

Research Assistant, NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition

BSc (Hons HKU), MNutrDiet (Sydney), APD

Jimmy Louie is a recent graduate of the Master of Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Sydney and an Accredited Practising Dietitian. His master’s project examined the effect of coffee pre-feeding on postprandial glycemic response, and from that he gained extensive knowledge and experience in the field of glycemic index (GI) and carbohydrate metabolism. Jimmy has a keen interest in the GI concept both from a laboratory and public health perspective.

Jimmy joined the Centre as a research assistant in April 2007 and is currently assisting in projects about Food Standards and Consumer Issues. He is also co-appointed by the Many Rivers Diabetes Prevention Program at the University of Newcastle, as a research assistant, assisting in the assignment of GI to food items studied in the project as well as statistical analysis of the data.