Dr Louise Naylor

Dr Louise Naylor is a researcher and senior lecturer in UWA’s School of Human Sciences and an Exercise and Sports Science Australia Accredited Exercise Physiologist. She believes exercise is medicine and can be used to treat, prevent or reduce the impact of chronic disease. Her research explores how exercise training can contribute to rehabilitating and improving health outcomes in individuals with, or at risk of, cardiovascular disease. Childhood obesity and adolescents with Type 2 diabetes are another focus of her work.

After completing her undergraduate degree and PhD at UWA, Dr Naylor commenced her research career working with both elite athletes and chronically ill individuals with conditions such as heart failure and obesity. Her research investigated how exercise can improve health and wellbeing, quality of life, depression and anxiety.

In a growing and research-led field, her projects have spanned topics such as understanding how to optimise prescriptions for survivors of cancer, patients with heart failure, ageing men, and patients with diabetes. 

Her research further investigates the need for exercise programs to be personalised to be effective, and the difference between different individual responses to exercise programs and why some people don't respond at all.

Dr Naylor is also involved in basic science research to add further mechanistic insights into the regulation of the cardiovascular system and generate a multifaceted understanding of cardiac and vascular exercise physiology.

As an ESSA Accredited Exercise Physiologist, Dr Naylor works as a Senior Exercise Physiologist in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Service at Fiona Stanley Hospital. She is also a member of the Cardiovascular Research Group  at UWA. This group conducts research into the development and optimisation of peripheral and cerebral vascular function assessment in humans.