I completed my both my undergraduate degree in Sports and Exercise Science and my PhD in exercise physiology at the University of Bath, with a couple of years in between spent as an applied sports scientist and then as a research assistant. My PhD research focussed on muscle health and ageing. Specifically, I examined exercise interventions to maintain and improve muscle function (power and strength), and muscle size, in healthy older adults both in everyday life and during short periods of dramatically reduced physical activity. This work on exercise snacking was featured in the BBC’s ‘Trust Me, I’m a Doctor’ TV series in 2018.

I balanced my PhD research with a general teaching assistant role, teaching on physiology and biomechanics modules of our BSc and MSci degree programmes.

I spent 1 year as a research associate managing an industry funded clinical trial investigating the impact of micronutrients on blood lipids after a high fat meal.

I am now working on a BBSRC-funded project with Prof Dylan Thompson, Prof James Betts, and Dr Javier Gonzalez. This novel and exciting work will examine whether exercise helps to mobilise vitamin D from adipose tissue, and potentially alleviate vitamin D deficiency in overweight adults to improve health. 

Alongside this, I am working with Dr Max Western and Dr Tom Welsh (Research Institute for Care of the Elderly) on a project to explore the use of exercise snacking in a clinical population of older adults.