Catherine Itsiopoulos MPH, PhD, APD, AN

Catherine Itsiopoulos is the Head of School, School of Allied Health at LaTrobe University. Catherine has more than 25 years of clinical, academic and project management experience. Recent positions Catherine has held include Associate Professor and Head of Discipline Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Canberra, Accreditation, Recognition and Education Services Manager with the Dietitians Association of Australia and Fellow of the Centre of Clinical Research Excellence in Clinical Science in Diabetes at the University of Melbourne.

Catherine has extensive experience and strong research interest in dietetic training, dietetic competency evaluation and implementation, and international benchmarking of dietetic examination systems. In her role at the Dietitians Association of Australia Catherine led projects in international benchmarking of dietetic systems and was instrumental in establishing the formal mutual recognition agreement with the New Zealand Dietitians Board. In this role, she also championed the review of the examination systems for dietetic skills recognition and credentialing and led the development of an enhanced model of examination utilizing an online multiple-choice questionnaire format.

Catherine's major research interests include randomised controlled clinical intervention studies in diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome utilizing the Mediterranean diet as a model of intervention. Catherine is also investigating the positive health and mortality profile of Greek-born migrants to Australia who have retained their positive CVD mortality profile despite more than 50 years since migration.