Dr Rebecca Leech

Dr Rebecca Leech is a Registered Nutritionist and Nutritional Epidemiologist, funded by a NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellowship. Rebecca has a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology, and in 2018, was awarded an Alfred Deakin Medal for her doctoral thesis, which examined adults’ eating patterns and their associations with diet quality and obesity. Her postdoctoral research, extends on this, and applies novel analytic approaches to understand the contextual determinants of food intake at eating occasions and the role of eating patterns in cardiometabolic health in adults. Between 2018 and 2021, she was the Student Mentoring Chair for the Nutrition Society of Australia. 

Awards and Prizes

1. National Heatlh and Medical Research Council Emerging Leadership Fellowship, NHMRC ($ 523,145; Jan 2021-Dec 2024)
2. First prize, Best poster presentation (voted by delegates), Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Epidemiological Association (AEA), Brisbane (2019; $100)
3. National Heart Foundation (NHF) Postdoctoral Fellowship, NHF. (Cat. 1 funding; $150,000; commencing July 2019; 2 years)
4. Finalist, Premier's Award for Health and Medical Research (Public Health Researcher Category. (2019) Winner to be announced March 2019.
5. Early Career Travel Grant, Nutrition Society of Australia ($1000). A competitive award that recognises high quality nutrition research completed by early career researchers. (2018)
6. Alfred Deakin Medal for Doctoral Thesis. Awarded to the student who produced the most outstanding thesis, Deakin University (2018)
7. First prize, Best PhD paper, School of Exercise & Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University (2018, 2015)
8. Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship, Deakin University. This a highly competitive fellowship scheme (11% success rate in 2017, 18 awarded from 159 applications), ($205,797; 2018-2019)
9. Higher Degrees by Research Publication Award, Faculty of Health, Deakin University ($3000). Award to support publication of research findings from PhD thesis (2017)
10. The Nutrition Society Paper of the Month for paper in Nutrition Research Reviews (June, 2015)
11. Deakin University Finalist (including school winner and faculty runner-up), 3 Minute Thesis Competition, Deakin University (2015)
12. Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship (2013-2016)

Invited International Conference Presentation

Leech RM. Understanding adults’ eating patterns: definitions, methodology and associations with diet and health. Invited Early Career Researcher Presentation, International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Cape Town (International), June 2016

Eating patterns and eating behaviours in relation to cardiometabolic health

Contextual and environmental correlations of eating behaviours

Clustering of lifestyle behaviours

Application of advanced, data-driven statistical methods to solve complex research questions that relate to eating and health in the real world

Nutritional epidemiology

• Nutritional epidemiology
• Advanced biostastics - with expertise in the applications of exploratory data-driven analytic methods such as latent class analysis, growth mixture modelling, cluster analysis
• Eating patterns and eating behaviours
• Obesity and cardiometabolic risk factors
• Clustering of lifestyle behaviours

INVITED PRESENTATIONS

Leech RM. Understanding adults’ eating patterns: definitions, methodology and associations with diet and health. Invited Early Career Researcher Presentation, International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Cape Town (International), June 2016

Leech RM. Learning to embrace chaos: tales of a fledgling researcher and an over-caffeinated mum. School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Higher Degrees by Research and Honours Symposium (invited keynote speaker; October 2018)

Leech RM. Temporal eating patterns of Australian adults: methodology and associations with diet and health. Nutrition Society of Australia Symposium: A good time to eat: the impact of time of day on health outcomes (invited presenter; October 2018)

SELECTED PRESENTATIONS

Leech RM, Pendergast FJ, Worsley A, McNaughton SA. Correlates of sugar-sweetened beverage intake at eating occasions in Australian young adults. NSA ASM, Canberra, Nov 2018

Leech RM, Pendergast FJ, Worsley A, McNaughton SA. Correlates of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption in Australian young adults. ECR Symposium (Prize session). ANZOS, Melbourne, 2018.

Leech RM, Timperio A, Worsley A, McNaughton SA. Eating patterns of Australian adults: associations with blood pressure and prevalence of hypertension. Poster Presentation. Nutrition 2018 (American Society for Nutrition Scientific Meeting. Boston, June 2018

Leech RM, Timperio A, Livingstone KM, Worsley A, McNaughton SA. Temporal eating patterns: associations with nutrient intakes, diet quality and measures of adiposity. Oral Presentation. 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Clinical Nutrition. Adelaide, November 2017

Leech RM, Worsley A, Timperio A, McNaughton SA. Associations between eating patterns and measures of adiposity in Australian adults. Oral Presentation. Annual Scientific Meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia. Melbourne, November 2016

Leech RM, Livingstone KM, Worsley A, Timperio A, McNaughton SA. Associations between eating patterns, nutrient intake and diet quality. Poster Presentation. Annual Meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, Cape Town, June 2016

McNaughton SA, Leech RM, Worsley A. Does the nutrient profile of snacks vary according to the time of day of consumption? Experimental Biology, San Diego, 2016.

McNaughton SA, Leech RM, Worsley. Trends in meal patterns of children and adolescents aged 2-18 years between 1995 and 2011: Analysis of two national surveys. Dietitians Association of Australia 32nd National Conference, Perth, 2015.

McNaughton SA, Leech RM, Worsley A. Examining trends in meal patterns between 1995 and 2011 using two national surveys. Experimental Biology, Boston, 2015.

Leech RM, Worsley A, Timperio A, McNaughton SA. Does the Choice of Meal Definition Influence How Meal Patterns Are Characterised? International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods, Brisbane, 2015

Leech RM, Worsley A, Timperio A, McNaughton SA. Characterising meal patters: a comparison of meal definitions. Annual Scientific Meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia. Hobart, 2014.

Leech RM, Worsley A, Timperio A, McNaughton SA. Patterns of meal timing in Australian adults: a latent class analysis approach. Poster Presentation. International Conference on Diet and Activity Methods, Brisbane, September 2015.

McNaughton SA, Leech RM, Worsley. Examining the meal patterns of Australian adults between 1995 and 2011. ANZOS 2014 Annual Scientific Meeting, Sydney, 2014

Honorary Chair of the Student Mentoring Group, Nutrition Society of Australia, (2018 - 2021)

Co-chair and co-ordinator, Monthly Lunch and Learn Meeting, Dietary Patterns and Eating Behaviours Research Group, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University, (2018 - 2022)

Reviewer for the Health Ethics Advisory Group. Role is to review ethics applications (~1 per month) for low risk human health research (2018 - 2022)

Current Registered Nutrition (RNutr), Nutrition Society of Australia (2016 - present)

Statistical editor for British Journal of Nutrition and Public Health Nutrition (2020 - present)

Dietary Patterns and Eating Behaviours, Insitute for Physical Activity and Nutrition

Selected Awards and Prizes

1. National Heart Foundation (NHF) Postdoctoral Fellowship, NHF. (Cat. 1 funding; $150,000; commencing July 2019; 2 years)
2. Finalist, Premier's Award for Health and Medical Research (Public Health Researcher Category. (2019) Winner to be announced March 2019.
3. Early Career Travel Grant, Nutrition Society of Australia ($1000). A competitive award that recognises high quality nutrition research completed by early career researchers. (2018)
4. Alfred Deakin Medal for Doctoral Thesis. Awarded to the student who produced the most outstanding thesis, Deakin University (2018)
5. First prize, Best PhD paper, School of Exercise & Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University (2018, 2015)
6. Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship, Deakin University. This a highly competitive fellowship scheme (11% success rate in 2017, 18 awarded from 159 applications), ($205,797; 2018-2019)
7. Higher Degrees by Research Publication Award, Faculty of Health, Deakin University ($3000). Award to support publication of research findings from PhD thesis (2017)
8. Second prize, Best student oral presentation, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, 11th Higher Degrees by Research Symposium, Melbourne (2015)
9. The Nutrition Society Paper of the Month for paper in Nutrition Research Reviews (June, 2015)
10. Deakin University Finalist (including school winner and faculty runner-up), 3 Minute Thesis Competition, Deakin University (2015)
11. Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship (2013-2016)
12. Student Travel Grant to present at Nutrition Society of Australia Scientific Meetings (Years awarded: 2012-2014)
13. Second prize for best student oral presentation, Nutrition Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting (Brisbane, 2013)
14. Australian Unity Faculty Award for best Honours thesis related to the topic of wellbeing ($500; 2013)

Current Funded Projects

National Health and Medical Research Council Emerging Leader Fellowship Investigator Grant: "Eating in context: Understanding the pathways through which everyday contextual factors influence food choices and cardiometabolic health" (APP1175250; $523,145; Jan 2021 - Dec 2024)

Past Funded Projects

National Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Research Project: "Eating in context: A multilevel approach to understanding eating patterns and their role in cardiovascular health" (ID: 102138; $150,000; 2019-2021)

Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship Research Project: "Eating patterns in context: A multilevel approach to understanding eating patterns and their role in cardiometabolic health" (Project ID: RM33996; $205,797; 2018-2019)

PhD project funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award: "Understanding adults' eating patterns" ($88,0000; 2013-2017)