Professor Alexandra (Alex) Johnstone is a research-based academic based at the Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen, where she is Theme Lead for Nutrition, Obesity and Disease. Alex obtained her PhD in 2001 and she is a UK registered Nutritionist with Association for Nutrition. She is recognized as a leading innovative UK researcher within the field of obesity and energy balance. She is currently leading UKRI Transforming Food Systems £1.6M grant on Obesity and Food Insecurity (FIO Food grant) and DIO Food project on Diet and Health Inequalities, on promoting healthier and environmentally sustainable food choices, with emphasis on the retail food sector. Her most recent £1.2M MRC grant award will examine high protein diets for caloric restriction and the role of sex, age on adipose tissue, and oestrogen for women’s health. Her team are also actively investigating controlled environment agriculture to produce bio-fortified plants to support healthy ageing. Alex manages a research team to successfully lead high calibre research activities, in collaboration with internal and external colleagues. She is actively engaged in organising and delivering teaching/learning excellence and the translation the team’s innovative science to a range of stakeholders, to achieving high impact, through sustained knowledge exchange activities, and having real commercial and community benefit.
