Hayley Scott

Dr. Hayley Scott is a Lecturer in Nutritional Biochemistry at the University of Newcastle's School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, part of the College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing. She is also the Nutrition and Exercise Theme Leader in the School and a senior member of the Nutrition and Immunometabolism Research Group at HMRI. Her research focuses on the impact of obesity, nutrition, physical activity, sex hormones, and metabolic health on respiratory disease outcomes, particularly asthma and COPD. Dr. Scott holds over $8.9M in research funding and has published 38 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including in high-impact journals like the European Respiratory Journal and Progress in Lipid Research. She has developed clinical guidelines for managing asthma in obesity and patient education resources used globally.

Her qualifications include a PhD in Respiratory and Sleep Medicine and a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics (Honours). She teaches courses on human metabolism, medical data management, and nutrition in health and disease, and currently supervises 4 PhD and 3 Honours students. Awards include the University of Newcastle Women in Research Fellowship (2017) and the Outstanding Scholar Award (2018).

Dr. Scott's research has translated into clinical practice guidelines, such as the Severe Asthma Toolkit and National Asthma Council Australia's Asthma Handbook. Her work demonstrates that weight loss (5-10%), dietary modifications (e.g., reducing saturated fats, increasing omega-3s), and exercise training improve asthma outcomes by reducing inflammation. She also discovered that female sex hormones, particularly the contraceptive pill, modulate asthma severity through GLUT-1 mechanisms.

Grants include the MRFF-funded IDEAL Study (2023-2025) and NHMRC Synergy Grant on the gut-lung axis (2022-2026). She collaborates widely, including leading the Australasian Severe Asthma Registry Comorbidities Working Group and editing special journal issues on fatty acids and inflammation in chronic diseases.

Labs/Teams: Her research is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs, HMRI's Immune Health Research Program, and the Nutrition and Immunometabolism Research Group.