Rate My Professor Rachel Brown

Professor Rachel Brown is Professor and Head of the Department of Human Nutrition within the Division of Sciences at the University of Otago, where she earned her MSc and PhD. Her research interests centre on nuts and health, as well as energy metabolism. She specializes in investigating the health effects of regular nut consumption, including impacts on blood lipid and lipoprotein levels, glycaemic response, sensory perception, inflammatory markers, endothelial function, appetite regulation, diet quality, body weight management, and overall energy balance. Leading the Nut Research Group, which was the first to explore critical public health questions around the feasibility and sustainability of regular nut consumption, her work has significantly informed New Zealand’s Eating and Activity Guidelines for Adults. She coordinates the papers NUTN 401 Principles of Human Nutrition and NUTN 404 Nutrition and Chronic Disease, and teaches HUNT 245 Sport and Exercise Nutrition and HUNT 342 Nutrition and Chronic Diseases.

Elected President of the Nutrition Society of New Zealand in 2022, Professor Brown holds a senior role on the Registration Panel for Nutritionists, assessing approximately 100 applications annually to maintain the integrity of the nutrition profession in Aotearoa New Zealand. She was promoted to Professor in the Department of Human Nutrition effective 1 February 2020. Brown has supervised numerous postgraduate students across PhD, MSc, and Master of Dietetics programmes, with theses covering topics such as the effects of activity breaks on glucose metabolism and sleep, risk of relative energy deficiency in female athletes, obesity resistance and susceptibility, support strategies for whole food diets and intermittent fasting, caregivers’ infant feeding practices in Papua New Guinea, barriers to nut consumption, effects of nut-enriched bread on cardiometabolic risks, soaking effects on almonds and nuts, energy availability in elite rugby players, and nutrient displacement with nut consumption. Key publications include Hettiarachchi et al. (2025, British Journal of Nutrition) 'Role of nut and seed intake on telomere length'; Parackal et al. (2025, Public Health Nutrition) 'Codesigning the South Asian Diet and Activity Intervention'; Parackal et al. (2024, Journal of Nutritional Science) on co-design for South Asians; Pai et al. (2024, Journal of Sports Medicine & Physical Fitness) on low energy availability in female team sport athletes; and Ware et al. (2023) on almond snacking displacing discretionary foods.