Professor Kerin O'Dea

After majoring in Pharmacology and Biochemistry, Kerin O'Dea completed a PhD in physical biochemistry. She returned to pharmacology for her early postdoctoral years in Germany (working as a research scientist for Bayer), France, and the US. It was during this period that she developed an interest in nutrition - in particular examining pharmacological and dietary approaches to delaying the rate of carbohydrate digestion and absorption. This led to research in obesity and type 2 diabetes (aetiology, complications and treatment), including work on glycemic index.

Shortly after returning to Australia from the US in late 1977, she began work on the impact of lifestyle change on type 2 diabetes and related conditions in Indigenous Australians. This became the major theme of her research subsequently, including the well known work demonstrating the strikingly beneficial impact of temporary reversion to traditional hunter gatherer diet and lifestyle on the metabolic abnormalities of diabetes and risk markers of cardiovascular disease. Over this period, her research was increasingly developing a population health focus. In 1988, she was appointed Professor of Human Nutrition at Deakin University, where she stayed for 10 years. Between 1993 and 1997 Professor O'Dea was first Dean of Health and Behavioural Sciences, then Pro Vice Chancellor (Research). In 1998 she moved to Monash University to a personal chair in Nutrition and Preventive Medicine.

In June 2000 she took up the position of Director of the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, which has a research focus on Indigenous, remote and tropical health. Most of her current research is on diet and lifestyle in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases (obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases), with a strong focus on elucidating the causal pathways and identifying critical intervention points. She is committed to a research approach that spans the spectrum from the basic biomedical to the population, and includes relevant quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

Kerin O'Dea has been active on numerous national committees advising government on health and medical research, Indigenous health, nutrition, and diabetes. She is frequently invited to present at international conferences, and write reviews, in the areas of diabetes, Indigenous health, and nutrition.