You might be interested
After working at Telstra for 10 years, Ellie Dunlop wanted a career change.
“I started studying nutrition as a mature-age student,” says Ellie. “I was really just looking for something sort of interesting and useful to do while my kids were at school.”
The ‘useful and interesting’ thing she landed on was a degree in nutrition, which eventually led to Ellie completing her Master of Dietetics.
“I didn’t know about dietetics when I first started studying nutrition. All the young people on the course, they knew what was going on, and I was like, I don’t know what dietetics is!” she laughs.
Now, Ellie is a research fellow at Deakin University and is an early career finalist at the Premier’s Science Awards.
VITAMIN D
“I did the dietetics course and really, really enjoyed it,” says Ellie. “I kind of had this vision of going into either private practice or clinical practice.
“But while I was doing the master’s, I did a small research project with one of my lecturers, Jill Sherriff, and someone I hadn’t even heard of, that was Lucinda Black.
“Now, 10 years later, Lucinda and I are still working together in research.”
Ellie’s master’s research project was looking at vitamin D in white fish and chicken eggs. Ellie says there was plenty of research on oily fish, but they wanted to test whether white fish was also a good vitamin D source.
This project served as pilot data that became Ellie’s PhD, which looked at dietary vitamin D in Australia.
“We made the first comprehensive vitamin D food composition database for Australia,” says Ellie.
“We found that there was like 95% of Australians [who] were not consuming enough vitamin D.
“Then we were looking at ways that we might be able to help people get more vitamin D in their diet.”
The food composition database explains how much vitamin D is in a variety of different foods.
The data has been adopted by Food Standards Australia New Zealand and is used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to estimate nutrient intake for the Australian population.
Ellie says it’s really satisfying to see her work being used to guide policy and enable people to make better food choices.
Credit: Supplied Ellie Dunlop
‘A REALLY LOVELY MELTING POT’
Alongside her colleagues, Ellie has also been working with Aboriginal communities to help understand the food composition of traditional foods.
“We’ve been collaborating with communities here on Noongar Country and also across the Kimberley,” she says.
“I’ve learned so much from Elders and community members. They’re really generous with sharing their knowledge.”
The research team is measuring the nutrient content of different bush foods to collate into a resource for mob.
Many of the findings from the lab work aligned with traditional food uses the Elders had spoken of.
“It all matches up, and [Elders] say, ‘We knew that was a good food!’, and it turns out that it has the nutrient content that matches up with that knowledge,” says Ellie.
“It’s this really lovely melting pot of different knowledges.”
COLLABORATION IS KEY
Ellie says she’s really proud of the collaborations and team work that she has fostered with her colleagues and that being a finalist for the Premier’s Science Awards is a team effort.
“For the team and our collaborators, it’s just a really nice recognition of the work of a lot of people. I’m very, very grateful,” says Ellie.
The strength of her collaborators and mentors is something Ellie says is important for anyone wanting to go into research.
“Definitely choose your supervisors and mentors really carefully,” she says.
“Choose people who are going to be really generous with their advice … Having good people around you is really important.”
