Why do a PhD in Deakin’s School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences?
Hear why our School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences is a great place to do a PhD. Our research is world class and we are passionate about supporting our students to become the research stars of the future.
Our highly cited researchers
Deakin researchers are known on the world stage as innovative thinkers and prolific publishers. In 2015, Thomson Reuters listed four of our school's staff as 'highly cited researchers'.
We are proud to congratulate Alfred Deakin Professors David Crawford, Jo Salmon, Kylie Ball and Professor Anna Timperio.
Current research areas
All of our research is focused on finding solutions. As such, our findings are regularly used to guide new policies in nutrition and physical activity. We're currently researching:
- treatments to enhance quality of life for sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (diagnosed in childhood) and motor neurone disease
- how people in disadvantaged communities can access healthy foods and physical activity opportunities
- how emergency services workers can stay safe, and physically and mentally well, to be able to perform at their best
- consumption of salt, sugar and fat, and their impacts on society
- the coach and healthy community sport
- measurement, analytics and prediction in sport.
Our research centres and groups
Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition
At the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) we’re in the unique position of being able to combine research in nutrition and physical activity.
Our institute, located on the Burwood Campus, is home to over 50 members of staff and 60 postgraduate students, all conducting research that works to significantly improve health in Australia.
Centre for Advanced Sensory Science
Research at the Centre for Advanced Sensory Science (CASS) supports the growth of the Australian food industry – now and for the future. Current research topics include satiety (feeling of fullness), children as consumers and flavour analysis.
Centre for Sport Research (CSR)
The Centre for Sport Research (CSR) comprises researchers from the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences and the Deakin Business School. They come from a variety of disciplines within exercise and sport sciences, and sport management.
At CSR our mission is to innovate and influence practice in sport, to enhance the health and performance of people and organisations across the sport participation spectrum.
We aim to promote sport and exercise as a vehicle to create healthy communities. In doing so, we build governance and management capacity to support participation and involvement in sport.
3D GAIT Lab
3D GAIT tracks movement as you walk or run. It can automatically identify movement that doesn't conform to the norm by comparing results against the world's largest database of 3D biomechanical walking and running data.
It provides our students and researchers with world-first facilities to support their work, and it's also available to the public.
Web-based Nutrition Competency Implementation Toolkit
The Web-based Nutrition Competency Implementation Toolkit (WNCIT) has been designed to train medical students in nutrition. If the nutritional issues of patients aren't managed properly, it can lead to increased time spent in hospital and longer recovery times.
Illnesses such as malnutrition, obesity and type II diabetes could even be avoided if the risks are identified early enough.