2026 Speakers
Prof Ron Maughan
Chair of Program Committee
Ron Maughan obtained his BSc (Physiology) and PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and was based in the Medical School there for almost 25 years before moving to England. He is now Visiting Professor in the School of Medicine at St Andrews University.
He spent much of his career trying to understand the physiological responses to exercise and the nature of fatigue, but has included many digressions along the way.
He chairs the Nutrition Working Group of the Medical Commission of the International Olympic Committee. He is a director of the IOC Diploma programs in Sports Nutrition, Sports Medicine, Sports Physical Therapies, Mental Health in Elite Sport and Drugs in Sport.
Prof Craig Sale
Program Committee
Professor Craig Sale is Professor of Human Physiology and Nutrition, as well as being the Deputy Director and Head of Research at the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport. In this capacity, Craig leads and coordinates the Institute’s research agenda, supporting academic staff and postgraduate researchers by shaping strategy, enhancing quality, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across sport, health, and wellbeing domains. Craig aims to drive the translation of exercise and nutrition science into real-world impact; importantly he champions interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange, fostering partnerships with sporting organisations, industry and health services to maximise the societal impact of research through the Institute of Sport.
Craig has worked for over two decades in the fields of exercise and nutritional physiology. His early career included teaching focussed and senior scientific roles in defence and human performance before moving into higher education research leadership. His research focuses upon how exercise and nutritional interventions modulate adaptations in bone and muscle, and the mechanisms underpinning musculoskeletal health, metabolism and performance. His key areas of expertise include musculoskeletal adaptation to loading and nutrition, performance nutrition strategies, interaction of exercise and diet in health and athletic performance, and translating physiology research into applied settings (elite sport, military, general population). Craig is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Nutritional Physiology.
Prof Graeme Close
Program Committee
Graeme is currently a Professor of Human Physiology at Liverpool John Moores University where is also the Head of The Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences. From an applied perspective, Graeme is the Head of Performance Nutrition to The DP World Tour Golf and High Performance Consultant to England Rugby and Everton FC. He is a fellow of both The European College of Sport Science (ECSS) and The British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES). Academically, Graeme’s research is focussed upon muscle damage and repair with a specific interest in Vitamin D and most recently cannabidiol (CBD). Graeme has published over 200 research publications and regularly delivers keynote conference presentations in sport nutrition throughout the world.
Prof Louise Burke
Program Committee
Louise is a sports dietitian with 40 years of experience in the education and counselling of elite athletes. She worked at the Australian Institute of Sport for thirty years, first as Head of Sports Nutrition and then as Chief of Nutrition Strategy. She was the team dietitian for the Australian Olympic Teams for the 1996-2012 Summer Olympic Games. Her publications include over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, and the authorship or editorship of several textbooks on sports nutrition. She is an editor of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Louise was a founding member of the Executive of Sports Dietitians Australia and is a Director of the IOC Diploma in Sports Nutrition. She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2009 for her contribution to sports nutrition. Louise was appointed as Chair in Sports Nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute of Health Research at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne in 2014 and took up this position in a full-time capacity in 2020.
Dr Enette Larson-Meyer
Program Committee
Dr Enette Larson-Meyer is currently a Professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech, where she directs the Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism Lab. Her research focuses on how nutrition influences the health and performance of active individuals at all stages of the lifecycle and at all levels of performance. Recent research interests include healthy weight gain in athletes and military personnel, and the importance of iodine and vitamin D status in exercise performance, disease prevention and general wellness. Enette has authored over 100 scientific articles, is the author of “Plant-Based Sports Nutrition. Expert Fueling Strategies for Training, Recovery, and Performance” (Human Kinetics, 2020) and has served on several International Olympic Committee consensus panels. She serves as an Associate Editor for Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise and the Science and Medicine of Football. Earlier in her career, Enette completed an internship at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (Colorado Springs) and served as a collegiate sports dietitian. Her personal interests include trail running, flat water kayaking and Irish-Step dancing. She is the proud mother of three college students, two of whom play/ played D2 soccer at U.S. Universities.
Prof Asker Jeukendrup
Professor Asker Jeukendrup is one of the world’s leading sports nutritionists and exercise physiologist who spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Birmingham (UK) (sports sciences). He is currently director of a performance consulting business “Mysportscience”, as well as a professor at Loughborough University. Asker is Performance Manager Nutrition for the Dutch Olympic team and the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center. He was head performance Nutrition for the Visma Lease a Bike Pro cycling team, who won all 3 grand Tours in 2023 recently became the Director of Performance Strategy for the Red Bull BORA Hansgrohe world tour cycling team as well as head of nutrition. He teaches the FC Barcelona Advanced Sports Nutrition course and maintains a website that aims to help separate sense and non-sense in sport science and sport nutrition (www.mysportscience.com). He also has an online education platform www.mysportscienceacademy.com.
In his academic career Dr Jeukendrup authored 10 books and over 250 research papers and book chapters. His textbook of Sport Nutrition is one of the best-selling textbooks on this topic with a new edition in June 2024. In addition to his academic work, he worked with Olympic and World champions, Tour de France cyclists, Champions league football teams, and other elite athletes. His mission is to use science to help athletes achieve their goals.
Prof James Morton
James is a Professor of Exercise Metabolism at Liverpool John Moores University where he has authored over 220 research publications related to sports physiology, exercise metabolism and nutrition. From 2010-2015, he was the performance nutritionist to Liverpool FC and Nutrition and Physical Performance Lead for Team Sky between 2015 and 2019. In this role, he was responsible for the performance nutrition strategy for 5 consecutive Tour de France wins. James has also advised INEOS Sport, where he led the INEOS X programme with the remit of cross pollination of best practice on leadership, coaching, and performance support across the INEOS Sport portfolio. James is also the Chief Scientific Officer at Science in Sport (SiS) where he leads the Performance Solutions programme that encompasses the strategic delivery of bespoke performance solutions and innovation for SiS and their elite partners.
Dr Benjamin Wall
Benjamin Wall obtained his BSc from the University of Birmingham and his PhD from the University of Nottingham Medical School, where his thesis addressed the integration of fat and carbohydrate metabolism during exercise. Thereafter, Benjamin worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands where he studied the nutritional regulation of muscle mass in health and disease before taking up a faculty position at the University of Exeter, UK, in 2013. Benjamin is now Professor of Nutritional Physiology at the University of Exeter, where his research interests concern how nutrition and physical (in)activity influence muscle mass, metabolic health and performance in a variety of populations. Benjamin’s current research projects are focussed on how inactivity and ageing alter the capacity of muscle tissue to utilise nutrients, and how this can inform on optimising nutritional requirements for injured athletes, hospitalised patients and in support of healthy ageing. A particular interest is placed on developing an evidence base around novel and sustainable dietary protein sources in various populations.
Dr Charlie Simpson
Dr Charlie Simpson is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at Oxford Brookes University, where he leads the Master of Science in Applied Sport and Exercise Nutrition. His academic work focuses on sport nutrition education, applied physiology, curriculum design, and the preparation of students for professional practice. He has also played a leading role at Oxford Brookes in supporting the responsible use of artificial intelligence in teaching, learning, assessment, and programme design.
Charlie holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Sydney, and the University of Aberdeen, where his PhD examined the effects of drink formulation on fluid delivery, absorption, and exercise responses in humans. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Academic Associate of the Sport and Exercise Nutrition Register.
Alongside his teaching and programme leadership, Charlie is extensively involved in international education, including collaborative sport nutrition provision with overseas university partners. He has also provided sport science and sport nutrition consultancy across a range of sports, with particular experience supporting rowers, rowing clubs, schools, and athletes across the UK.
Emma Scheerlinck
Emma Scheerlinck is a Performance Nutritionist at Feyenoord Rotterdam, where she supports male and female players across academy and first-team environments in elite football. She holds an MSc in Sport Nutrition from the University of Stirling and the International Olympic Committee Diploma in Sports Nutrition.
Her work focuses on translating scientific evidence into practice within high-performance sport. Her research interests include nutrition knowledge, fuelling behaviours, and recovery strategies in football, as well as the role of the gut microbiome in training adaptation, recovery, and performance. She is particularly interested in bridging the gap between research and applied practice to support athlete development and performance, and aims to further develop her research career alongside her work in elite football.
Prof Ian Needleman
Ian is Professor of Periodontology and Evidence-Informed Healthcare at University College London, Eastman Dental Institute. Ian leads the Centre for Oral Health and Performance. He is a faculty member of the International Olympic Committee Diploma in Sports Medicine. His research has been awarded prizes by the British Association for Sport and Exercise Medicine, European Federation of Periodontology, Royal Society of Medicine, German Periodontal Society, German Cochrane Centre and International Association for Dental Research. He is a past president of the British Society of Periodontology when he established a Patient Forum for the Society, the first for any periodontal organisation worldwide. He was a Cochrane Editor for Periodontal Health for more than 20 years. He was awarded the UCL Provost’s Prize for Institutional Leadership in Public Engagement in 2017 and nominated as an inspiring teacher by UCL in 2007. During the pandemic, Ian worked with ICU to develop a Family Liaison Team which received the 2021 Intensive Care Society Improvement Project &UCLH Top Quality Patient care awards. He is a member of the German Athletics Federation Scientific Committee. When not injured, he is an enthusiastic endurance road and mountain runner.
Prof Javier Gonzalez
Javier is Professor of Nutrition and Metabolism at the Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism (CNEM), University of Bath. His is interested in human fuel use. How we get fuel from our diet, burn fuels during exercise; and store fuels when they exceed our requirements. His research group employs a variety of methods to understand human fuel use, including indirect calorimetry, tissue biopsies and stable isotopes. These methods are used across laboratory-based and free-living studies. In recognition of his research, Javier received the Julie Wallace Award 2018 from the Nutrition Society and is one of the Inaugural Excellence in Nutrition Fellows of the American Society for Nutrition (FASN). He is also an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Sport Nutrition & Exercise Metabolism, First Editor for the British Journal of Nutrition, and is a consultant to several organisations in sport, health and nutrition.
Prof John Jakicic
John M. Jakicic, PhD is a Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Division of Physical Activity and Weight Management. He has an interdisciplinary research program that examines the prevention and treatment of chronic health conditions, with a particular focus on the role of increased physical activity and reduced sedentary behavior. Central to this research has been a focus on the prevention and treatment of obesity as a chronic disease that includes lifestyle, pharmacotherapy, and metabolic and bariatric surgery. He served on numerous national committees focused on obesity, physical activity, and other chronic health conditions, which included his appointment by the US Department of Health and Human Services to the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee. He authored the 2024 American College of Sport Medicine’s Consensus paper focused on obesity and excess adiposity. He has applied these experiences to clinical and population focused interventions for obesity, with a particular focus on enhancing the access and effectiveness of treatments for individuals living with obesity.
Prof John Speakman
John Speakman is a Professor at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology in Shenzhen, China and also at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK. He works on energy balance, ageing and obesity. His recent work has focused on using the mouse as a model to understand macronutrient effects on energy balance, and the impacts of calorie restriction. He has also established a unique human metabolic facility in Shenzhen where he investigates weight regulation in humans. He has published over 700 scientific papers including 14 in Nature/Science, and was featured twice on the cover of Nature. He is a foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences, an academician of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the UK Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2020 he was awarded the US Obesity Society TOPS award and in the same year was also awarded the Osborne-Mendel prize by the American Society of Nutrition for basic research. In 2023 he was awarded the Society for Endocrinology Dale medal, and in 2024 the American Physiology Society Solomon Berson award.
Prof Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen
Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen is a professor of Physical Activity and Health at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (NSSS) within the Institute for Sports Medicine. She obtained her PhD from NSSS in 1993. She has served as a visiting scholar at Yale University and a visiting professor at UC Berkeley.
From 1995 to 2009, she led the Nutrition department at the Norwegian Olympic Training Center and has held leadership positions in the Nordic eating disorder organization. She is a member of expert groups for the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association and the IOC, focusing on body composition, REDs, and mental health.
Her main areas of interest are prevention and treatment of eating disorders in athletes, perfectionism, nutrition and the female athlete triad/REDs, elite athletes and pregnancy and sexual harassment and abuse.
She is an ACSM Fellow and has been awarded an “Honorary Fellowship” from the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) at Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), she has received the Norwegian Research Council’s Excellence in Science Communication award and she was honored with the Women’s Health Research Award in 2022, founded by the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association.
With over 220 scientific publications, Jorunn also provides guidance to elite athletes and coaches regarding REDs, eating disorders, pregnancy and sexual harassment.
Jorunn has been a member of the national gymnastics team and later served as a coach for the national team.
Peter Res
Peter Res is a Netherlands-based performance nutritionist with decades of experience translating sports nutrition science into elite athletic practice. He has worked with high-performance athletes and teams at the international level, including with Ajax and TeamNL, and has contributed to landmark publications such as the UEFA Expert Group Statement on Nutrition in Elite Football. Currently, he is working in long track speed skating.
Peter is a leading voice at the intersection of performance, nutrition and sustainability. He is co-founder of the Climavore Athlete Movement, a foundation dedicated to making sport nutrition more sustainable through data-driven changes in food choices. The Climavore Athlete Movement is serving a community of professionals in performance nutrition and helping push social tipping points towards more sustainable eating, with athletes as role models.
Prof Therese Fostervold Mathisen
Professor Therese Fostervold Mathisen is a sports dietitian and exercise physiologist affiliated with Østfold University of Applied Sciences and the Oslo Research Center for Women’s Sport, Physical Activity and Health at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. She currently serves as President of the Norwegian Society for Eating Disorders and a board member of the Nordic Society for Eating Disorders.
She earned her PhD in Sport Science in 2018, during which she developed and evaluated a novel and successful treatment approach for eating disorders—Physical Exercise and Dietary Therapy (PED-t)—under the supervision of Professor Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen. Professor Mathisen’s research focuses on exercise as medicine, eating disorder prevention and treatment, and female athlete health, including Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs).She was the lead author of the International Olympic Committee’s supplementary consensus paper on best practice recommendations for body composition considerations in sport.
Mathisen is experienced with DXA measurements and is ISAK Level 1 accredited. She is an active contributor to research dissemination across academic and public platforms – an effortrecognized with the Østfold University of Applied Sciences Annual Research Dissemination Award (2021) and the International Society of Strength and Conditioning Applied Science Award (2025). In addition to her academic and clinical expertise, she has personal experience as a national-level (Tier 3) athlete in both volleyball and powerlifting.
