Dr Rachelle Pretorius is a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr) and Post Doctoral researcher in the Nutrition and Early Life team. She is particularly interested in understanding the influence of early life environment and exposures, such as nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood, on later-life disease outcomes.

After ten years of working in the industry as a global regulatory and scientific affairs manager, Rachelle commenced a career in research and academia. Rachelle completed her PhD at the University of Western Australia. Her PhD project was part of the SYMBA Study (a sub-project of The ORIGIN project) – Promoting Gut Health (SYMBiosis) for Allergy Prevention. Her PhD focused on maternal dietary fibre intake during pregnancy and maternal and infant metabolic and immune health outcomes. In her first early-career research project, she worked with the LIFECYCLE team and gained further experience in epidemiology, big-data management, and networking with the European Child Cohort Network (ECCN).

Dr Pretorius is a research fellow at Telethonkids Institute within the Nutrition In Early Life (NIEL) Team, where her research focuses on understanding the relationship between the food and nutrient combinations pregnant women eat during pregnancy and childhood allergic disease prevention. Dr Pretorius is also committed to exploring how a mother's pregnancy diet may impact the early-stage development of the brain. Her vision is to optimise pregnant mothers' diets, which may lead to better health outcomes for their children.