Associate Professor Melinda Coughlan holds a Career Development Fellowship from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Clinical Research Network and is head of the Glycation, Nutrition & Metabolism Lab at Monash University, Central Clinical School, Melbourne. She studied Biology and Nutrition before obtaining a PhD in the area of Gestational Diabetes at the University of Melbourne, Mercy Hospital for Women. Her research group is particularly interested in the role of diet in the development of diabetes complications and in identifying novel targets of therapy to halt disease pathogenesis. She currently holds research grants from the NHMRC and JDRF for her translational work into diet, nutrition and mitochondrial homeostasis.