PhD Project: Deciphering gender and ethnic disparity in obesity and cardiometabolic disease.
Supervisor: Dr Jennifer L Miles-Chan, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland.
Project Description: New Zealand has the third highest rates of obesity in the world. Despite decades of effort to reduce these rates, they continue to rise, particularly in young women and especially amongst Māori and Pacific. With current “one-size-fits-all” interventions proving ineffective, attention has turned to more individualised approaches. However ethnic- and gender-specific strategies are lacking owing to an absence of unifying explanation for the disparity in obesity prevalence. This project aims to decipher the physiological basis of these health inequalities; combining state-of-the-art techniques of energy balance (including indirect calorimetry) and body composition phenotyping.
This project would suit someone with a biomedical or integrative physiology background. However, enthusiastic and self-motivated candidates from other backgrounds with an interest in nutrition and metabolism are also welcome to apply. Laboratory experience in any of these areas would be advantageous.
FULL APPLICATION IN ATTACHED FILE
