Megan Warin

Professor Megan Warin

Professor

School of Social Sciences

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Megan is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences and has held academic positions in Anthropology (Durham University), Gender Studies, Public Health, and Psychiatry. Her research investigates gender and class differences in obesity, public understandings of obesity science (developmental origins of health and disease and epigenetics), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views on health, eating and intergenerational transmission, phenomenological approaches to embodiment and the nature of desire in disordered eating. Much of her research is interdisciplinary and works across biosocial approaches to cultural practices, embodiment and health, drawing on a range of scholarship (gender studies, anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, lifecourse, philosophy, feminism & sociology) that seeks to engage with the social and life sciences.

Megan's research work on cultures of food and eating has been translated into curriculum resources for teachers and school students in Australia on the Australian Broadcast Commission (ABC) website in conjunction with Magda Zubanski's series: 'The Big National Health Check'. Co-written with A/Prof Deana Leahy (Monash University) and other collaborators, these resources focus on the social determinants of health.
https://wwingw.abc.net.au/education/magda-s-big-health-check-helps-reimagine-health-education/101761938

Megan welcomes inquiries from PhD candidates interested in: food and eating, health, gendered bodies, eating disorders, sensory anthropology, phenomenology, obesity, lifecourse perspectives, biosocial approaches, the anthropology of epigenetics and the First 1000 days..

My current projects include:

ARC LP210301337 Situating care: Addressing obesity in disadvantaged communities. Prof Megan Warin; Dr Tanya Zivkovic; Prof JaneMaree Maher (Monash); Mrs Danielle Abbott. Industry partners: The Australian Centre for Social Innovation Inc., Uniting Communities Inc. 

This project aims to drive an urgently needed shift from top-down interventions that focus on obesity as an individual problem of diets and exercise, to collective solutions of care generated by families for families, empowering social change at a local, community level. In collaboration with Australia’s leading designers of social innovation, this anthropology project expects to generate new knowledge about care, families and food practices in disadvantaged communities, and to construct new digital, policy, and program frameworks for broader adaptation. The advances are likely to have a strong bearing on how more equitable health policy and practices evolve in Australia and internationally.

Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) Workshop Grant, From Theory to Practice: Leveraging Feminist Approaches to Care at a Time of Crisis. Prof Megan Warin, Dr Sophie Chao and Emerita Prof Chris Beasley (for The Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender)

RACGP Foundation Grant, The Care Project - Improving the wellbeing of older Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri women. Dr Annapurna Nori, Prof Vivienne Moore, Dr Odette Pearson and Prof Megan Warin

ARC Discovery, Epigenetic Charisma: The Politics of Epigenetic Hope and Hype in Australia  (Kowal, E.; Warin, M & Meloni, M)

This project seeks to examine the ways in which epigenetic discourses are strategically taken up and used in Indigenous Australian contexts. Unlike genetic research, epigenetics offers the promise of hope through environmental change, but also carries the dangerous potential of biosocial damage.

ARC Discovery, Risk, Trust and Socio-economic Status: Understanding middle-aged women’s responses to alcohol/breast cancer risks (Ward, P; Warin, M; Wilson C; Olver I; Miller, E; Bissell P; Meyer, S & Macdonald, S)

This project aims to identify and understand the nature of alcohol consumption patterns by ‘middle-aged’ Australian women in different socio-economic status (SES) groups, and if/how these are shaped in response to considerations of trust and future health risks. We will focus on the known risk of alcohol for the development of breast cancer, which is particularly important given that Australian culture is seemingly saturated by alcohol use, marketing and social acceptability.

 

 

Date

Project Name Investigators Funding Body

Amount

2023-2026

Situating care: Creating change and building stronger communities Prof Megan Warin; Dr Tanya Zivkovic; Prof JaneMaree Maher; Mrs Danielle Abbott. ARC Linkage $408,000
2021-2022 From Theory to Practice: Leveraging Feminist Approaches to Care at a Time of Crisis Prof Megan Warin, Dr Sophie Chao and Emerita Prof Chris Beasley (for The Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender) Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) Workshop Grant

$9000

2020-2021

The Care Project - Improving the wellbeing of older Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri women. Dr Annapurna Nori, Prof Vivienne Moore, Dr Odette Pearson and Prof Megan Warin RACGP Foundation Grant $8973
2019 - 2023 Epigenetic Charisma: The Politics of Epigenetic Hope and Hype in Australia Kowal, E.; Warin, M & Meloni, M ARC Discovery $348,000
2019 - 2023 Risk, Trust and Socio-economic Status: Understanding middle-aged women’s responses to alcohol/breast cancer risks Ward, P; Warin, M; Wilson C; Olver I; Miller, E; Bissell P; Meyer, S & Macdonald, S ARC Discovery $461,000
2018 - 2020 Family by Family: Addressing childhood obesity through local understandings and local solutions Warin M; Zivkovic T & Maher J Channel 7 Children's Research Fund $74,000
2016 - 2022 Improving nutrition and health outcomes for women and babies in the Aboriginal Family Birthing Program Middleton, P; Stuart-Butler, D; Ah Kit, J; Brown, S; Rumbold, A; Makrides, M; Warin, M; Brown, A; Mensah, F & Deverix J NHMRC $975,881
2016 Indigenous knowledge in a postgenomic landscape: The politics of epigenetic reparation Warin, M Faculty Active Research Grant $3,992
2015 - 2019 Food/Body encounters: new approaches and alternative solutions to obesity prevention and policy Warin, M ARC Future Fellow $789,729
2013 Developing a new biocultural framework to address 'wicked public health problems. Warin, M; V Moore, J Dodd, A Chong (Ypih) Yaitya Purruna Indigenous Health Unit. Interdisciplinary Research Fund $22,000
2012 - 2015 Steward or nanny state: Consulting the public about the use of regulations and laws to address childhood obesity. Braunack-Mayer, A; Street, J; Reynolds, C; Moore, V; Warin, M; Carter, D; Moss, J & Merlin, T Australian National Preventive Health Agency Research Grants Program $288,381
2012 - 2015 An ethnographic study of obesity risk in a disadvantaged community. Warin, M; Moore, V; Ward, P; Jones, M & RA: Zivkovic, T ARC Linkage $162,885
2012 Biological postcards: The popularisation of Barker’s hypothesis Warin, M Faculty Research Active Grant Scheme $7396
2012 - 2013 Food stories: How children from socially disadvantaged areas engage with childhood obesity prevention programs. Warin, M Channel 7 Children's Research Fund $75,000
2011 - 2014 Dynamics of denial: Why are people with eating disorders reluctant to engage with treatment services?

Warin, M; Wade, T & Gilchrist, P 

ARC Linkage $108,000

2007- 2010

Early life influences on obesity and fat patterning in children: critical periods, environmental determinants, and socio-cultural context Moore V; Davies, M; Robinson J; Warin, M & Worsley, T National Health and Medical Research Council $1.1 million
2006-2008 The Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study: Promoting Health Wellbeing and Utilisation of Health Services by Middle aged and Older Men

Wittert, G; Hiller, J; Taylor, A; Warin, M; Braunack-Mayer, A, & Nettelbeck T..

Premiers Science Research Award $300,000
2004-2007 Florey Adelaide Male Aging Study Wittert, G; Marshall, V; Hiller, J; Warin, M; Taylor, A; O’Loughlin, P; Tilley, W; Choong, C; Wallace, J; Forbes, B; Sugarman, R. Florey Medical Research Grant $450, 000

 

Introduction to Gender Studies

Introduction to Gender Studies OL

Gender, Bodies and Health

Gender and Crime

Gender and Crime OL

Gender and Sexualities in the Digital Age

Honours Co-ordinator

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2024 Principal Supervisor Dissonant embodiments: understanding the phenomenological, sensory, and temporal dimensions of neurodivergent embodiment and the constraints of normativity. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Lila Wolff
    2021 Principal Supervisor Disruptive Bodies in Discursive Spaces: Radical Fat Acceptance and Fat Bodies on Instagram Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Tarmia Klass
    2019 Co-Supervisor The Care Project - Improving the Wellbeing of Older Kaurna Ngarrindjeri Women Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Annapurna Nori
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Embodied Measuring: Outwitting Type 2 Diabetes in Middle Class Urban India Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Pallavi Laxmikanth
    2019 - 2024 Principal Supervisor Unsettling epigenetics: contested understandings of trauma and evidence in settler colonial Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Henrietta Rose Byrne
    2013 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Enacting Knowledge, Power, and Equity: Understanding the Public Appetite for Preventive Obesity Regulations Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Lucy Farrell
    2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Assemblages of Care: Why Women with Disordered Eating are Ambivalent to Seek Therapeutic Care Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Connie Marguerite Musolino
    2011 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Navigating “madness” and “fatness”: distorted spatiotemporalities in experiences of antipsychotic-induced weight gain Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Tara Lee Bates
    2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Gender and Invested Agency: Cultural Expressions in the United Arab Emirates Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Jillian Schedneck
    2009 - 2011 Co-Supervisor To Entrap and Empower: Maternal Responsibility in an Age of Neo-Liberal Health Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Toni Delany
    2009 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Negotiating Perceptions of Failure, Risk and Redemption in an Australian Breast Milk Bank Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Gabbie Zizzo
    2005 - 2007 Co-Supervisor The Trouble with White Pants: Medicalisation and Agency in the Context of Menstrual Suppression Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Jessica Gunson
    2004 - 2005 Co-Supervisor What is Social Support? A Grounded Theory of Social Interaction in the Context of the New Family Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Philippa Williams
    2003 - 2012 Co-Supervisor Beyond Masculinity: A Qualitative Study of Men's Help Seeking and Health Service Use in South Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr James Smith
  • Position: Professor
  • Phone: 83134864
  • Email: megan.warin@adelaide.edu.au
  • Fax: 83133345
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Napier, floor 1
  • Org Unit: School of Social Sciences

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