Professor Jennie Brand-Miller

Jennie Brand-Miller is Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Sydney where she also holds a Personal Chair. Her research interests focus on all aspects of carbohydrates including diet and diabetes, the glycemic index and insulin resistance.

As a nutrition lecturer in 1981, Jennie was investigating Aboriginal bush foods when she came across the concept of the Glycemic Index that has since changed the way the world thinks about food, nutrition and dieting. At the University she's known as "GI Jennie "and around the world she's become famous as the scientist who defied her critics with ground breaking work on the Glycemic Index, a method of measuring the body's absorption of carbohydrates.

After 16 books and 200 journal articles, she's at the forefront of research that may help millions of people avoid the chronic condition of diabetes. She has a strong interest in the diet of our ancestors - 'paleolithic nutrition' and has published tables of composition of Australian Aboriginal traditional foods - the largest wild food database in the world. Her books about the glycemic index, The New Glucose Revolution, are international bestsellers with sales close to 3 million in 12 languages.

Jennie's success was further celebrated when she became a finalist in the 2006 Australian of the Year Award.