Associate Professor Justin Denny

Dr Justin Denny is an Associate Professor of Global Health at UWA, maintaining his appointments as the Kathryn Robertson Professor of Global Health, an endowed faculty position at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU). This involves continuing to connect OHSU faculty and students with global health experiences in Southeast Asia and Oceania and teaching an online global health course to graduate students in Oregon.  
 
As Director, Dr Denny oversees programming for graduate students and faculty from the schools of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health. Together with local partners, he is also responsible for overseeing projects, ranging from Occupational Health Centre of Excellence development and simulation training for ICU nurses and physicians, to eye surgeon training in Myanmar, and infectious disease and vaccine research for dengue fever, zika virus and tuberculosis in Bangkok. He also oversees student and resident exchanges for Mahidol University, Mae Fah Luang University and OHSU. Dr Denny also worked with the Laos Ministry of Health lay the foundation for the first nutrition institute in Laos where OHSU trains the country's first dietitians and future leaders to address the top health priority of malnutrition. 

When based in Laos, Dr Denny also worked as a medical epidemiologist with the World Health Organization to create the country's first field epidemiology training program. He has also worked to improve the skill set of public health and clinical leaders from Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. As a result, Dr Denny has longstanding regional connections in southeast Asia. Prior to this engagement, he transitioned the largest global enteric disease surveillance system from London to Stockholm when working with the European Centre for Disease Control. 

At UWA, Dr Denny teaches the unit PUBH1102: Health and Globalisation.

We are conducting a study of sin lek rice versus traditional white rice consumption in elementary school children in Chiang Rai, Thailand, to:

1. Determine differences in the microbiome pre- and post-sin lek rice consumption and whether microbiome changes are different between students consuming sin lek rice and those consuming traditional white rice.
2. Quantify changes in body mass index pre- and post-sin lek rice consumption and differences in change in body mass index between groups (sin lek vs. traditional white rice).
3. Estimate the effect of sin lek rice versus traditional white rice consumption on cognitive function as determined by performance on short-term working memory and attention tasks.