Dr Megan Gow is a Senior Research Fellow with both Food Policy and the Women’s Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health, in Sydney, Australia. Her PhD investigated various dietary interventions in the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. Her research at The George Institute is centred on a Food is Medicine program of work, where she is a lead on two clinical trials, investigating how Produce Prescription interventions can be implemented within the Australian healthcare system to address diet-related disease and food insecurity, specifically for adults with type 2 diabetes, and pregnant women at risk of gestational diabetes. 

Dr Tania Thodis is a research fellow and accredited practising dietitian leading the FareShare Medically Tailored Meals Pilot Program, a joint partnership with Australia’s largest not-for-profit food relief organisation providing millions of meals for vulnerable Australians. A ‘Food Is Medicine’ advocate, Tania is passionate about improving access to nutritious foods and diet quality underpinned by a culturally responsive approach to improve health outcomes of vulnerable and ethnically diverse communities. Clinical and mixed method research experience includes acute and outpatient healthcare settings, facilitating dietary intervention trials testing Mediterranean-style diet and lifestyle interventions as a model for preventing and managing chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, NAFLD, dementia and cardiovascular disease and a national trial to co-create and test the clinical and cost-effectiveness of culturally responsive, multilingual digital health resources in 10 languages. 

Tania has a PhD in nutrition epidemiology (MEDIS-Australia study), which examined associations between lifestyle and sociocultural characteristics of first-generation Greek Australian long-term migrants, their adherence to a Mediterranean diet pattern and successful ageing compared to counterparts living in Greece.