Amy Reichelt

Dr Amy Reichelt is an emerging independent research leader at the intersection of neuroscience and nutrition, who is passionate about uncovering the neural mechanisms that underpin how diet impacts brain health and mental wellbeing across the lifespan, with a particular focus on the adolescent brain.

After completing her PhD in Neuroscience at Cardiff University UK, which investigated the cognitive impact of dementia neuropathologies on executive function using transgenic models of frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Amy went on to undertake postdoctoral research in how food memories can be updated in the brain, through the process of memory reconsolidation. This research led her to become intrigued by how diet itself impacts behaviour and cognition. Amy secured a prestigious ARC DECRA fellowship at UNSW Sydney where she led a program of research dedicated to understanding how obesogenic high fat and high sugar diets disrupted the refinement of the adolescent brain and altered fundamental learning and memory processes. This work was extended during her lectureship at RMIT University, pinpointing adolescence as a period of vulnerability to the negative consequences of obesogenic diets, and further funding in the form of an ARC Discovery Project to investigate the neuronal populations implicated in diet-induced cognitive decline, and the transgenerational impacts of obesity.

In 2018, Amy relocated to Western University, Canada as a Canada First Research Excellence Fund "BrainsCAN" Senior Fellow, where she worked with global leaders in developing highly translational cognitive tests for rodents which can be combined with cutting-edge neurotechnologies (i.e. Fiber-photometry and optogenetics). Furthermore, she extended her research into the neurobiological impact of diet to its effects on non-neuronal factors - primarily the brain's extracellular matrix - as a critical controller of both neuroplasticity and neuroprotection.

Amy has recently returned back to Australia as a Senior Lecturer and Research Group Leader within Adelaide Medical School, with funding from an NHMRC Investigator Grant and the Neurosurgical Research Foundation. Here she will lead research into the fundamental role of the extracellular matrix in obesity-induced cognitive decline, neurodegenerative diseases, neurodevelopmental processes and neurotrauma.

In recognition of her research excellence and commitment to the clear communication of science to the public, Amy has received an NSW Tall Poppy Award and RMIT Media Star award. She has written over 25 articles for The Conversation and has been interviewed in the media as a neuroscience expert by The New York Times, ABC radio, CBC radio, The Project, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, and SBS radio to name but a few. She has been featured on the ABC RN podcasts "All in the mind" and "Brain Matters". Her most career-defining moment to date was the presentation of a talk "This is your brain on sugar" at TEDxSydney.