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BIOGRAPHY
Dr Kirstine Bell
APD, CDE, PhD
Biography: Image
My passion for working in nutrition and diabetes began as an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Credentialled Diabetes Educator. I completed my PhD at the University of Sydney in 2014, investigating optimising mealtime insulin dosing for protein and fat using the Food Insulin Index in type 1 diabetes. Following my PhD, I was invited to take up post-doctoral research opportunities with Joslin Diabetes Center & Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA and then with the Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle. In 2017, I was awarded a prestigious NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship and an Australian Diabetes Research Foundation grant and returned to the Charles Perkins Centre to set up a new type 1 diabetes research program.
In 2020, I was awarded a Fellowship from JDRF Australia as the Principal Investigator on a pilot national general population screening program for type 1 diabetes (2020-2023). My previous research has focused on optimising mealtime insulin dosing for dietary fat and protein in adults with type 1 diabetes. This ground-breaking research has generated great interest in Australia and internationally and established me as an emerging leader in this field. Over the past 8 years, I have been invited to present my work at 27 conferences (20 national, 7 international) including the International Congress of Endocrinology and American Diabetes Association (ADA) Scientific Sessions. To date (Jan, 2020), I have published 19 journal articles (13 as first author) in top-tier international, peer-reviewed journals in my field including Diabetes Care and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. My research is influencing clinical practice. Since 2015, the outcomes of my research have been incorporated into the ADA ‘Standards of Medical Care’, the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guidelines as well as the 5th edition of ADA’s ‘Intensive Diabetes Management’ reference book.
My commitment to the translation of research into clinical practice has seen me regularly invited to present at health professional meetings across Australia including the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) and Australian Diabetes Educator Association (ADEA). My achievements have been recognised by my peers. For example, in 2014, I was awarded the DAA Prize for Excellence in Research and JDRF’s Early-Stage Researcher Travel Grant, and in 2015 the Pfizer’s Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Care Research Grant.
I am actively involved in the clinical and research community. I serve as the DAA National Diabetes Convenor, the treasurer of the DAA NSW Branch Executive and the Clinical Co-Chair of the Australasian Diabetes Congress Program Organising Committee. I am a reviewer for multiple leading journals including Diabetologia and Diabetes Care. I have supervised 3 Masters students and am mentoring a PhD student and senior dietitian.
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