Professor Alison Gallagher
Head of Doctoral College, Professor of Public Health Nutrition, Ulster University, UK
Alison Gallagher is Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Ulster University where she contributes to the research conducted within the Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE). Her research interests resonate within the area of obesity and include low calorie sweeteners and their potential impact on health, development of risk factors for disease and lifestyle interventions at key stages across the lifecycle particularly to enhance physical activity and health. A Registered Nutritionist (Public Health), she was the first Fellow of the Association for Nutrition (FAfN) on the island of Ireland. An active member of the Nutrition Society, she is the co-Chair of the Science Committee for FENS 2019. She is a passionate advocate for the European Nutrition Leadership Platform (ENLP), having participated in the ENLP seminar in 1997 and being involved with this international leadership programme ever since, now as Chair/President of the ENLP Board (www.enlp.eu.com).
Dr Margaret Ashwell, OBE, DSc, Ph.D., FAfN, RNutr(Public Health)
Margaret is a Registered Nutritionist and is the President/ Chair of the Association for Nutrition. She was among the first to advocate the use of the simple waist-to-height ratio as a warning of early health risk. Primary screening only requires a piece of string: „Keep your waist to less than half your height“. She has been a Research Scientist with the Medical Research Council, Principal of the Good Housekeeping Institute, Science Director of the British Nutrition Foundation and, for more than 20 years, Director of Ashwell Associates, a nutrition science consultancy. Margaret edited the biography of the nutrition pioneers, McCance and Widdowson, published in 1993. She describes this project as that which has given her most satisfaction. She served on the UK Government’s Food Advisory Committee for 9 years. She is now a Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School and she received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Westminster in 2018.
Professor Anne Raben Ph.D.
Professor in Obesity Research, Head of Study Board, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Anne Raben (AR) is Ph.D. in Human Nutrition, Professor in the Obesity Research Unit, and Head of Study Board at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS), SCIENCE, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. AR has solid experience with clinical intervention studies within obesity and related diseases. Main research topics have been on dietary and drug-induced changes in body weight, appetite regulation, energy expenditure, metabolic parameters and risk markers of CVD and T2D. Especially, the role of different macronutrients and carbohydrates – including sugar, non-caloric sweeteners, and glycemic index – has been in focus. Recently, AR was Project Coordinator of a large multinational EU FP7 project “PREVIEW”, Prevention of Diabetes through lifestyle Intervention and populations studies in Europe and around the World (www.previewstudy.com, 2013-18). Currently, AR is co-coordinator of a new Horizon-2020 project “SWEET” focusing on the impact of sweeteners and sweeteners enhancers on health, obesity, safety and sustainability (www.sweetproject.eu, 2018 – 2023).
Professor Jason C.G. Halford Ph.D. C.Psychol. (Health)
Head of Department – Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK
Prof Jason Halford is Head of the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Liverpool, President Elect of the European Association of Obesity (EASO), and former Chair of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO). He is a Chartered Health Psychologist. Over the past 10 years his research has focused on drug-induced weight gain, the effects of nutrients and fibre on appetite and hormone release, the effects of stress on eating behaviour, the effect of marketing on children, and on lean-obese differences in the expression of appetite. In 1999, Jason co-founded the Kissileff Human Ingestive Behaviour Laboratory at Liverpool and in 2004 he also co-founded the Liverpool Obesity Research Network (LORN). Jason is co-ordinator of the SWITCH study, a new trial to examine the impact of artificial sweeteners on appetite in the context of active weight management and is one of the co-ordinating leads for the 9m Euro H2020 SWEET project designed to examine the risks and benefits of using sweeteners to replace sugar in the diet in the contexts of health, obesity, safety and sustainability. Jason is also local lead for iKnowFood examining local and global food systems and their impact on health and leads the Health, Consumption and Behaviour theme for N8 Agrifood for the Universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York.