Felice Jacka

Felice Jacka
Professor Jacka is director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Australia. She is founder and president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR) and immediate past president of the Australian Alliance for the Prevention of Mental Disorders. She holds Honorary Principal Research Fellow appointments at the Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children's Research Centre, and the Black Dog Institute. Professor Jacka has pioneered a highly innovative program of research that examines how individuals' diets, and other lifestyle behaviours, interact with the risk for mental health problems. Her current research focuses closely on the links between diet, gut health and mental and brain health. This work is being carried out with the ultimate goal of developing new, evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies for mental disorders. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers, the majority in high-impact journals in the mental health field including the American Journal of Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, BMC Medicine and Lancet Psychiatry. She is listed in the top ten most highly-cited researchers in mood disorders in Australia (Scopus).