Associate Professor Catherine Itsiopoulos is the founding Head of Department and Associate Professor in Dietetics and Human Nutrition at La Trobe University. Catherine recently took on the additional role of Associate Dean International with the Faculty of Health Sciences at La Trobe University. Catherine’s previous roles included Head of School of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Canberra, Manager of Accreditation Services at the Dietitians Association of Australia and Fellow of the CCRE in Diabetes at the University of Melbourne. Catherine currently holds Adjunct Associate Professor roles at the University of Canberra and the University of Melbourne and has a senior academic appointment on the Australian Dietetics Council. Her academic, clinical research, health service management and dietetics career spans more than 28 years and she is recognised for her expertise in clinical trials utilising the Mediterranean diet and for her expertise in accreditation and international benchmarking of professional programs. Catherine’s major research interests include clinical intervention studies in diabetes, cardiovascular disease and the metabolic syndrome utilising the Mediterranean diet as a model of intervention. She is currently supervising 13 PhD students, 5of them focussing on Mediterranean diet studies (traditional diet and culture of Greek migrants, intervention studies using the Mediterranean diet in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, reversal of diabetes, fatty liver and depression). Catherine has published widely in peer reviewed journals, and has recently published her first book titled ‘The Mediterranean Diet’ (Pan MacMillan, 2013), in which she reviews recent evidence on the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet and includes traditional recipes.