Kerin O’Dea (Professor of Population Health and Nutrition, University of South Australia) is a nutrition scientist and public health researcher examining diet and lifestyle in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases (obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases). She has a particular interest in the therapeutic potential of traditional diets – especially Aboriginal hunter-gatherer and Mediterranean diets – and is committed to a research approach that spans the spectrum from the basic biomedical to the population. She has held numerous senior academic and research leadership positions over the past 20 years, including Director of the Menzies Institute of Health Research in Darwin (2000-2005), and has been active on numerous national committees advising government on health and medical research, Indigenous health, nutrition, and diabetes.