
Dr Rajshri Roy



Bio
Rajshri Roy is a registered dietitian who has completed her PhD research at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney. Her research is in the area of population nutrition and community dietetics looking at lifestyle interventions and nutritional epidemiology in young adults. In her current research, she is particularly interested in digital marketing and social media opportunities for dietary behaviour change in young adults. Rajshri is passionate about food and nutrition and their relation to holistic health. She has expertise in food environments, digital health, public health nutrition, and multidisciplinary research and is an advocate for the primary prevention of obesity and chronic diseases in young adults.
She holds leadership roles locally, nationally, and internationally including nutrition chair of the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) governance group, convenor of the Dietitians New Zealand Public Health Special Interest Group, and the New Zealand representative of the Dietitians Australia Food Regulatory and Policy Committee. Specializing in research, public health nutrition, and clinical dietetics, she is currently working as a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, course directing in the Masters of Health Sciences in Nutrition and Dietetics programme and conducting research in the area of nutrition and dietetics.
DEGREES
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PhD
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 4 Mar 2013 - 31 Jul 2016
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Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, 3 Dec 2018 - 2 Dec 2019
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BSC (Hons)
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 5 Mar 2007 - 14 Nov 2011
Affiliation: Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Auckland
Research Areas of Expertise: - Public Health Nutrition - Obesity - Diet - Food Environment Interventions - Dietary Behaviour Change - Young Adults - Health Promotion - Social Marketing - Implementation Science - Nutrition Assessment - Nutritional Epidemiology - Dietary Patterns - eHealth/mHealth - Qualitative Research - Translational Research
CERTIFICATIONS
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Registered Dietitian, New Zealand
The Dietitians Board of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, 22 Jul 2016 - present
Registered within the Scope of Practice of a Dietitian in New Zealand with name been duly entered in the Register of Dietitians.
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Accredited Practising Dietitian, Australia
Dietitians Australia, Canberra, Australia, 1 Mar 2011 - present
Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) credential is a public guarantee of dietetic expertise.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Digital and social media opportunities for dietary behavior change in young adults.
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Health Promotion for Young Adults using Youth Codesign of a Social Media Program
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Promoting healthier food portions with the application of Augmented Reality
Food environment interventions for dietary behaviour change
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Point-of-purchase food environment interventions
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Digital food environments - Online food delivery services
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Impact of the food environment on diet quality
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Ethnographic research on university student eating behaviours and dietary patterns
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Evaluating portion sizes of foods on unhealthy/junk food advertising in children's neighbourhoods using Google Street View
Nutrition and dietetics research in improving dietary behaviors
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Exploring the health and nutritional benefits of NZ pasture-raised beef and lamb
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Student dietetic education research
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Exploring weight bias in dietitians
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Online self-compassion for weight management intervention
Impact of dietary behaviours on food security and sustainability
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Exploring the changes in sustainable and healthy food practices in response to COVID-19 in New Zealand and the UK
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COVID Kai research explores how cooking, shopping, and eating has changed during lockdown
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Mapping the Effects of Social and Economic Factors on Chronic Diseases – A Comparative Analysis of New Zealand and Australia
Research Quality and Impact
Describe how your research has demonstrable quality and impact
''My h-index is 14 which is an author level metric to measure my productivity as a researcher and citation impact of my publications as a researcher. My top h cited research is my systematic literature review on ‘’Food environment interventions to improve the dietary behaviour of young adults in tertiary education settings’’ published in the Journal of the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in August 2015. I have published in 'top' journals in the field of public health nutrition and they largely have impact factors between approximately 2.5 and 4.31. According to ResearchGate, I have an Research Interest Score of 410.7 which is higher than 85% of all ResearchGate members and higher than 92% of all members who first published in 2012. The Research Interest Score is an indicator of citations and social media generated regarding research publications and commentary. Currently, there are 537 citations of my research outputs.
I have presented my research, including as an invited speaker, at both national and international conferences, notably the Sydney Local Health District Allied Health Research Forum (2015), Dietitians Association of Australia Conference (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019), Dietitians New Zealand Conference (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021), International Congress on Obesity (2014, and 2016), International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity Conference (2015, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), European Congress on Obesity (2018) and International Congress of Dietetics (ICD 2020, postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19). Most recently, I was an invited speaker at the General Practice Continuing Medical Education conference in 2022.
My main research focus is the development of public policy to support healthy eating, and my research has mainly focused on the food environment and its effect on young adult overweight and obesity. I have been responsible for a range of strategic research outputs which have underpin policy discussions and advocacy efforts around the improvement of food environments in tertiary education settings. I have led many projects that have made original contributions to the literature and expanded knowledge and practice in the area of population nutrition research. My research on food environments and its impact on energy-dense, nutrient-poor food consumption is widely cited within the nutrition community. I developed an online resource for broad dissemination, to large employers, governments, academic and vocational training institutions. This resource included simple, valid and reliable measurement tools and indicators to enable ‘health checks’ of organisational settings and a detailed and professional toolkit for implementing positive changes to organisational food environments. Outcomes of my research have been extensively reported on in print, radio and online media (for example, the Sydney Morning Herald, NZ Herald, the Australian, the Age, Radio NZ, Stuff.co.nz, The Conversation and others). ''