Rate My Professor Brett Gordon

Associate Professor Brett Gordon serves as Head of the Department of Rural Allied Health at La Trobe University’s La Trobe Rural Health School. He earned his PhD in Exercise Physiology from RMIT University between February 2007 and January 2012. His academic career at La Trobe University progressed from Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rural Allied Health from November 2013 to December 2020, to his current role as Associate Professor. Earlier, he held the position of Honorary Exercise Physiologist in the Department of Physiotherapy at Austin Health from December 2010 to December 2015. An Accredited Exercise Physiologist (AEP), Gordon leads the Human Performance and Active Rural Individuals Stream for the Holsworth Research Initiative. He supervises five PhD candidates and two Master by Research candidates, and contributes to teaching in exercise physiology.

Gordon’s research focuses on enhancing exercise and physical activity participation to prevent and treat cardiometabolic diseases, with emphasis on exercise dose in terms of intensity, timing, frequency, and mode, particularly for individuals in regional areas and those with chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. His investigations cover resistance training benefits, the impact of caffeine and Capsicum annuum on glucose levels and brown adipose tissue, sympathovagal balance and cardiac arrhythmias following high-volume endurance exercise, telehealth versus supervised cardiac rehabilitation, physical activity monitoring via smartphone apps, and occupational participation among rural former service members. Key publications include “Physical activity intensity can be accurately monitored by smartphone global positioning system 'app'” (2015), “Both caffeine and Capsicum annuum fruit powder lower blood glucose levels and increase brown adipose tissue temperature in healthy adult males” (2022), “Sympathovagal Balance Is a Strong Predictor of Post High-Volume Endurance Exercise Cardiac Arrhythmia” (2022), “Rural former service members participate in meaningful occupations to ‘fill the void’ after military service” (2023), “Comparison of telehealth and supervised phase III cardiac rehabilitation in regional Australia: protocol for a non-inferiority trial” (2023), and “Time Course of Cardiac Arrhythmia Following High-Volume Exercise in Recreational Cyclists” (2026). With 81 peer-reviewed publications, his work has accumulated 1,857 citations. Gordon serves on the Scientific Reports Editorial Board since May 2024 and as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Sports and Active Living since June 2024.