Judith Maher

Biography

Jude Maher has more than 20 years of clinical and health promotion experience within both the nursing and dietetic fields. Jude's research interests centre on understanding, enabling and enhancing maternal nutrition. This time in the lifecycle (pregnancy, birth and beyond) is significant for both short- and long-term outcomes for women and their children. Jude aspires to contributing to the current and future nutritional health of our region through this focus. She uses multiple methods to achieve these outcomes including qualitative, quantitative and strength-based approaches to research. Jude brings a socioecological and sustainability perspective to her research making explicit how human endeavours and behaviours are created and influenced by the broader socio-ecological context. This lens provides a productive way to generate and evaluate her research.

In the past 7 years Jude has given birth to three (3) children, taken maternity leave and subsequently works part time while she provides the care she perceives her children need. These experiences reflect threefold on her career and priorities. 1) Time. Time is finite and she uses her time with intention. 2) Food for nourishment. Food is central to our experience as humans. The role food plays in all our lives is secondary to few other things. Food is therefore necessarily complex. Approaches to working with food require critical thought, understanding and collaboration. 3) Appreciation. Jude aims to work within an appreciative framework recognising the many competing priorities we all manage to navigate. This includes appreciative approaches to supervision, collaboration, community engagement and self-care.

Jude teaches into both the Bachelor of Nutrition and the Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics. She has a strong teaching focus on public health nutrition theory and practice underpinned by a health promotion framework. Jude employs a range of authentic and experiential teaching and learning methods to journey with students as they learn and develop into critical thinking practitioners.

Teaching areas

• Nutrition Communication
• Advanced Public Health Nutrition
• Qualitative Research

Expert media commentary

Jude Maher's specialist areas of knowledge include maternal nutrition, infant nutrition, experiential learning, local food systems, sustainability issues in nutrition, vegetables, ultraprocessed food.