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.

In my postdoctoral research associate roles I managed a 1-year industry funded clinical trial investigating the impact of micronutrients on blood lipids after a high fat meal, and 4-year BBSRC-funded project. This novel work with Prof Dylan Thompson, Prof James Betts, and Dr Javier Gonzalez examined whether exercise mobilises vitamin D from adipose tissue to potentially alleviate vitamin D deficiency in overweight adults. Alongside this, I undertook teaching only lecture roles, and with Dr Max Western and Dr Tom Welsh (Research Institute for Care of the Elderly) completed a project to explore the use of exercise snacking in a clinical population of older adults.

In my current role as Medlock Research Fellow I am exploring minimal dose exercise snacking in both outpatient and inpatient populations as means to delay sarcopenia or prevent deconditioning during hospital stays.