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PhD Candidate (Nutritional Epidemiology)
School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Australia
I am a nutritionist by academic training having a nursing background. I have an extensive experience of teaching undergraduate and graduate students and supervising their thesis research works in the Institute of Health, Jimma University, Ethiopia.
Besides teaching activities, I have actively been involved in research works, where I won both national and international research grants. I did my masters thesis on Vitamin D and its association with musculoskeletal and metabolic health in school children in Ethiopia under a main supervision of Prof. Susan J. Whiting, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. I have produced three papers in reputable journals from my masters thesis, with interesting findings contributing to policy implications of vitamin D in school children as well as in general population in Ethiopia.
Currently, I am doing my PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology at The University of Queensland, School of Public Health, under main supervision of Prof. Jake Najman, using data from a long running birth cohort of the Mater University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) in Brisbane, Australia. As part of my PhD studies, I am evaluating the effect of overall dietary intakes on cardiometabolic disease risks among young adults in Australia. Also, I am examining the associations of early young adulthood dietary patterns explaining variations in blood lipids and diabetes-related endpoints during late young adulthood and the risk of the 30-year predicted CVD, calculated using the Framingham Heart Study algorithms, in midlife.
The link between dietary patterns and cardiometabolic risks and diseases including, obesity, lipid profiles, MetS, and markers of diabetes (e.g., insulin resistance), diabetes and coronary heart disease are well characterised in middle aged and older adults. While obesity rates are highest during emerging adulthood with its known effect on cardiometabolic diseases at later ages, growing body of evidence shows subclinical atherosclerosis and other markers of CVD are also apparent in young adults in their early 20s. These might be related to poor food consumption patterns in this course of life. My PhD project focuses on young adults to evaluate their dietary risk of a range of cardiometabolic risks and diseases to reduce the burden of these conditions in later life and promote healthy aging. I am keen user of SAS, good understanding and skill of using R in data analysis.