Our People

Strategic Leadership Group

  • Professor Danielle Gallegos

    Professor Danielle Gallegos is the Chair of the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research funded by the Queensland Children’s Hospital Foundation. She has over thirty years of experience as a practicing dietitian with fifteen of those as a public health nutritionist and ten years in academia. Since arriving in academia Danielle has built...

  • Professor Nikhil Thapar

    Professor Nikhil Thapar is a Clinical/Health Services Research Senior Research Fellow position at QUT within the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research and is a member of the Strategic Leadership Group. Professor Nikhil Thapar is Director of the Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Liver Transplant service at Queensland Children’s Hospital, Brisbane, where he...

  • Associate Professor Severine Navarro

    Professor Severine Navarro is a Children’s Hospital Foundation Fellow and spokesperson to the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research. The focus of her research is the development of hookworm protein-based therapeutics for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases such as allergy, asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases and mood disorders. She completed her...

  • Kate Kruger

    Ms Kate Kruger is the Centre and Knowledge Translation Manger for the CCNR. Kate has a wealth of project management experience  in the areas of women’s wellness, advanced practice nursing, wound care and most recently clinical practice. With an academic background in public health she has worked closely with key...

External Advisory Group

  • Professor Aimee McVeigh

    Professor Aimee McVeigh is QCOSS’ Chief Executive Officer, and a strong advocate for equality, opportunity and wellbeing for all Queenslanders. As a community lawyer and human rights advocate, Aimee led the successful campaign for a Human Rights Act for Queensland. Aimee has qualifications in communications and law, attaining a Master...

  • Emeritus Professor Lynne Daniels

    Professor Lynne Daniels was appointed to a newly established capacity building research chair within the Institute Health and Biomedical Innovation in August 2006. Her research interests include nutrition and feeding in infancy and early childhood, childhood obesity, selenium status of infants and nutrition assessment and support of older adults. Research...

  • Emeritus Professor David Crawford

    Professor David Crawford has more than 40 years’ of experience in public health research.  His research has focused on the role of nutrition and physical activity in chronic disease prevention and management; development of behaviour change strategies to improve health; population strategies to promote healthy eating and physical activity.

  • Damon Mudge

    Damon is an Interim Executive Manager and Management Consultant with extensive experience in the health industry working in both commercial and non-profit organisations in the pharmaceutical, medical and health industries. Originally an Exercise Physiologist, Damon is an MBA qualified generalist with experience working as a CIO, COO and CEO.  His...

Research Team

  • Dr Emma Esdaile

    Dr Emma Esdaile is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research and Project Lead for the #SchoolFoodies Project. This project aims to promote universal access to quality food and nutrition education and optimal school food environments within a range of local contexts among Queensland primary schools. Emma...

  • Dr Kimberley Baxter

    Dr Kimberley Baxter is a Dietitian and is currently working on the Responsive Feeding in Tough Times (R-FiTT) project. R-FiTT aims to promote the use of responsive feeding practices within families experiencing food insecurity through a collaboratively designed intervention. Kimberley has a background in infant and child feeding and health...

  • Dr Sabine Baker

    Dr Sabine Baker is a registered Psychologist and Research Fellow at the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research. She leads the Feeding Families in Tough Times (FFiTT) project which aims to develop a portfolio of solutions to food insecurity in disadvantaged families. FFiTT works closely with families with a lived experience...

  • Dr Heena Akbar

    Dr Heena Akbar is a Research Fellow at the Childhood Nutrition Research, working on the Feeding our Mana Project. Heena has extensive experience in community development, community-based participatory action research, and with strong application of qualitative, quantitative and Indigenous methodologies and approaches in cross-cultural settings including the Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres...

  • Dr Jeremy Kerr

    Dr Jeremy Kerr is a senior lecturer in the QUT School of Design and the lead investigator for the CCNR Co-Design Framework and Toolkit project. Jeremy’s research explores new design frameworks and methods to advance community capacity building and self-advocacy. His research projects include design-led initiatives in the areas of mental...

  • Dr Rebecca Byrne

    Dr Rebecca Byrne is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. Rebecca practised as a clinical dietitian in hospital and domiciliary settings before commencing her PhD at QUT. Her PhD, examining the dietary intake of toddlers, sat within the NOURISH randomised controlled trial. NOURISH was...

  • Professor Thea Blackler

    Professor Alethea Blackler is Discipline Leader for the Experiential Disciplines within the School of Design and was previously the Associate Director of the QUT Design Lab. She is one of the world leaders in her principle area of research, intuitive interaction. She pioneered the first empirical work in the field,...

  • Dr Smita Nambiar-Mann

    Dr Smita Nambiar-Mann is an Accredited Practising Dietitian with over 15 years of experience in clinical dietetics (private practice), research (industry and academia) and teaching. Smita is passionate about paediatric nutrition, particularly in relation to the prevention of childhood obesity. Her career in dietetics began as a research dietitian for...

  • Dr Athena Andreosso

  • Dr Yan Lu

    Dr Yan Lu is a nutrition scientist with 10+ years of laboratory experience and extensive practical knowledge with general nutrition, especially micromineral research. Particularly, Yan have expertise in using in vivo as well as in vitro models and life science methodologies to study nutrient transport and homeostasis. Dr Yan Lu strong...

HDR Students

  • Tina Gingell

    Tina completed her Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics (Honours) at QUT in 2019.  She is now an Accredited Practising Dietitian and a PhD candidate, working through CCNR on a community-based project working with people from refugee backgrounds.  The project uses a participatory action research design and qualitative methods which will...

  • Susannah Ayre

    Susannah is an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) and PhD candidate in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at QUT. She completed her Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics at QUT and has worked as a dietitian in education, research, and community settings in Brisbane. Her main area of interest is...

  • Jeffrey So

    Jeffrey is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and a PhD candidate within QUT School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences. His research project at the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research is seated within the Responsive Feeding in Tough times (RFiTT) project. His project titled Dads at Mealtime aims to explore fathers’ role...

  • Jessica Cheers

    Jessica Cheers is a User Experience designer, PhD candidate, design educator and all-round playful human. She has an Honours degree in Interactive and Visual Design from Queensland University of Technology, as well as 7 years experience practicing across a range of design modalities. Embedded within the QUT Design Lab, HEAL...

  • Bree Whiteoak

    Bree Whiteoak is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and a PhD candidate within the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at QUT. Her research project at the Woolworths Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research will explore relationships between socioeconomic status, food insecurity, diet, and the gut microbiome in pregnant women. While studying...

  • Mandy Taylor

    Mandy is an Accredited Practicing Dietitian (APD) and PhD Candidate in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at QUT. Her project at the Woolworths Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research sits within the ‘Feeding Families in Tough Times (FFiTT)’ project. Her research will employ innovative mixed-methods techniques with a focus...

  • Sophie Wright-Pedersen

    Sophie Wright-Pedersen holds a Bachelor Degree of Nutrition and Dietetics (Hons) and is a PhD Candidate within QUT’s School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences. She has over four years of experience working for charitable, non-government and government organisations as a Public Health Dietitian within Wollongong and Alice Springs. Her main areas of interest...

Research Collaborators