Rate My Professor Rachael Taylor

Professor Rachael Taylor holds the Karitane Chair in Early Childhood Obesity at the University of Otago, where she is also Head of the Department of Medicine in the Dunedin School of Medicine and Director of the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre. She earned her BSc (Hons) and PhD from the University of Otago, completing her doctorate in 2001 with a thesis entitled 'Body composition in children and adolescents: a DXA based study.' Taylor has been affiliated with the University of Otago throughout her career, progressing to full professor status in 2016. Her leadership roles extend to guiding the Healthy Weight theme within the E Tipu e Rea (A Better Start) National Science Challenge.

Taylor's research examines how sleep, diet, and physical activity interact to influence body weight across the life cycle, with a primary focus on early childhood obesity prevention. She conducts observational studies and large randomised controlled trials to develop objective measures of lifestyle behaviours, explore mechanistic interactions between behaviours, and test interventions for effective weight management in children, families, and communities. Her work addresses complementary feeding practices, sleep habits, screen time, rapid weight gain, and household food insecurity, particularly among Māori and Pacific infants in New Zealand. Taylor has authored over 320 publications, accumulating more than 13,500 citations. Key contributions include 'Evaluation of waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, and the conicity index as screening tools for high trunk fat mass, as measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry' (2000, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1659 citations), 'Bone mineral density and body composition in boys with distal forearm fractures: a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry study' (2001, The Journal of Pediatrics, 588 citations), and 'Bone mineral density in girls with forearm fractures' (1998, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 540 citations). Recognized for her impact, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (FRSNZ) in 2022, holds the Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellowship, and in 2023 secured a $5 million Health Research Council programme grant for her team. She also received an INTUE Annual Award in 2024 for time-use epidemiology.