Rebecca Leech

Dr Rebecca Leech is a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr.) and Nutritional Epidemiologist. She has a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology, and in 2018, was awarded an Alfred Deakin Medal for her doctoral thesis, which examined adults’ eating patterns and their relationships with overall diet quality and markers of cardiometabolic health. Eating patterns describe the timing, frequency, and food content of eating occasions, which includes meals and snacks. Her current research applies novel analysis techniques and assessment methods to understand the contextual determinants of eating patterns. Rebecca's research intends to inform the development of strategies for healthy eating that are context-specific and tailored to everyday situations.

Since the award of her PhD in 2018 Rebecca has held three consecutive fellowships and has received over $673k in research funding (National Heart Foundation; National Health & Medical Research Council) as lead investigator. In 2019, she was a Finalist for the Premier's Award for Health and Medical Research (Public Health Category). Between 2018 and 2021 she was the Chair of Student Mentoring for the Nutrition Society of Australia. Rebecca also has a master's degree in clinical epidemiology and was a secondary teacher of German and Science before pursuing a career in nutrition research.