Current members

I did my BSc and master’s degrees in the UK, with research projects on molecular ecology and quantitative genetics. In 2010 I moved to The University of Otago in New Zealand to undertake my PhD in the Zoology Department with Shinichi Nakagawa. For my doctorate I did research on gene-environment interactions and sex determination using fish as model taxa. In 2014 I moved to the University of Sydney to work on questions in nutritional ecology with Profs Stephen Simpson & David Raubenheimer. In 2018 I was awarded an ARC DECRA to start my own research program on nutrition and life-history traits. 

I completed my BSc (Hons) at Monash University, majoring in chemistry and genetics. I stayed at Monash to complete my PhD in the School of Biological Sciences with Matt Piper. My PhD research focussed on the effects of restricting single, dietary amino acids - specifically how this impacted stress resistance, lifespan and reproduction in Drosophila melanogaster. After submitting my thesis in 2024, I moved to the University of Sydney to work with Alistair as a postdoc researcher. My research now focuses on the interactions between diet/nutrients and genetics that influence health- and lifespan. 

I am a current PhD student under the supervision of Dr Alistair Senior. My research brings together statistical and analytical methods at the forefront of nutritional ecology, epidemiology, and longevity sciences, with the aim of improving our understanding of how the diet and our nutritional environments can contribute to population longevity and healthy ageing. Prior to this, I completed a Bachelor of Science at The University of Sydney in 2019, majoring in Nutrition and Metabolism, and Mathematics, followed by Honours in Biochemistry. Under the supervision of Dr Senior, my Honours thesis looked at the ways in which our appetites and intake responses have evolved to target protein consumption and nutritional balance for optimal health and function.

I completed my honours at UNSW in biotechnology before commencing my research career working in bioinformatics and next generation sequencing at the Garvan Institute’s Kinghorn centre. My interest in data science was whetted working on new statistical techniques for sequencing error correction and I eventually moved to work in the development of new fraud detection algorithms for the Australian Federal Government. I have subsequently returned to commence a PhD, marrying insights from machine learning with evolutionary biology to uncover the evolutionary origins of ageing.

I am a PhD student from Malaysia and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) with Honours at the University of Sydney in 2019. I commenced my PhD research in 2020. My doctoral research aims to investigate the changes that occur within insulin secretory granules within beta-cells of the pancreas. Specifically, I aim to characterize the insulin secretory granule during their lifespan and to explore proteome-level changes as granules age.

I began my career in research at the University of Oxford as an animal technician managing a colony of locusts for Professor Steve Simpson. In 2005 I moved to University of Sydney with Steve to manage a locust colony here in Australia. I have since worked as a lab tech with mice and fruit flies. I am currently engaged in creating a database for meta-analysis.

I am pursuing my bachelor's degree in Medical Sciences and Advanced Studies, and my research interests lie precisely in Genetics and Genomics. Under the supervision of Dr. Alistair Senior and Dr. Shila Ghazanfar, I recently completed a summer research project on gene-diet interactions in Drosophila strains. Drawing on my experience and learnings from the summer project, I continue to explore Drosophila diet, lifespan and survival assays at the intersection of nutritional ecology and dietary studies.

I completed my Ph.D. in 2017 at the University of Helsinki, Institute of Biotechnology in the field of molecular genetics. In my Ph.D. I studied the transcriptional control of sugar sensing by using Drosophila as a model organism. After completing my Ph.D., I moved to Australia to do my first postdoctoral training at the University of Sydney. During this time, I studied gene-interactions in both mice and flies with genetically diverse backgrounds to understand how the genetic makeup defines an optimal diet at an individual level.  As a postdoc in ASW lab I’m currently studying how stress signaling and novel sugar regulated genes affect sugar utilization, and how these mechanisms are affected in mitochondrial disease.

Cameron completed his undergraduate and Hons degrees in computer science at the University of Sydney. He finished his PhD with us here at The University of Sydney in 2020 on the topic of theoretical nutritional and evolutionary ecology. Cameron's speciality was in theoretical modelling via computational simulation. He has since moved on to CSIRO, before making the jump to an industry position.

I am from the United States where I completed a master's degree in Nutritional Sciences and training as a Registered Dietitian at Oklahoma State University. My master's research involved administering acute feeding trials in humans to explore the impact of physical activity and aging on the metabolic response to a high-fat meal. I am now a third-year PhD candidate at The University of Sydney studying the population-level impact of dietary macronutrients on noncommunicable diseases and aging throughout the life course.