Meet the team

Prof Carel le Roux

Professor Carel le Roux graduated from medical school in Pretoria South Africa, completed his specialist training in metabolic medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospitals and the Hammersmith Hospitals. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London where he later took up a faculty position. He moved to University College Dublin for the Chair in Experimental Pathology and he is now a Director of the Metabolic Medicine Group. He also holds the position of Professor of Metabolic Medicine at Ulster University. He currently coordinates an Innovative Medicine Initiative project on obesity. He previously received a President of Ireland Young Researcher Award, Irish Research Council Laurate Award, Clinician Scientist Award from the National Institute Health Research in the UK, and a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship for his work on how the gut talks to the brain.

Mr Dimitri Pournaras

Dimitri Pournaras graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and undertook all his postgraduate training in the UK. He was awarded a Royal College of Surgeons of England Research Fellowship to conduct research on obesity, diabetes and metabolic surgery.

He completed his PhD in the Department of Investigative Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London and then trained in oesophagogastric surgery in Cambridge and Norwich. Following a Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery Fellowship approved by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, he was appointed as a Consultant Upper Gastrointestinal and Bariatric Surgeon in Bristol where he currently works as part of the multidisciplinary team.  His long standing collaboration with University College Dublin in research has led to regular clinical work, treating obesity as a disease in St Vincent’s Healthcare Group.

Ms Therese Coleman 

Therese Coleman is a registered dietitian and nutritionist. She graduated in 1999 with a BSc. (Hons) Nutritional Science from University College Cork, Ireland (UCC), where she also undertook postgraduate studies, gaining an MSc. in Food Business and Development (2001). 

Her research funded by the Higher Education Authority Programme for Research investigated attitudes to diet and health. 

Therese completed the postgraduate diploma in Human Nutrition and Dietetics at London Metropolitan University in 2011.

Therese worked within the Bariatric Services multi-disciplinary team (MDT) at University College London Hospital providing dietetic outpatient and inpatient service to patients undergoing bariatric surgery. 

Dr Werd Al-Najim

Dr Werd Al-Najim graduated from Kingston University with a BSc. Hons degree in Nutrition Science in 2012. In 2013, she started a PhD at Imperial College London where she investigated changes in eating behaviour after weight loss interventions under the supervision of Prof Carel le Roux and Prof Julian Teare. During her PhD, she had the opportunity to work on a number of research projects in Sir Steve Bloom’s lab and received training by world leading experts in the field of Obesity and Bariatric Surgery. 

Werd moved to Dublin-Ireland in 2016 to complete her Postdoctoral training at the Metabolic Medicine Group investigating how the gut talks to the brain. She was involved in the establishment of the Obesity Clinical Research Programme within the University College Dublin Diabetes Complications Research Centre.

She is currently managing SOPHIA, an Innovative Medicine Initiative project from the European Union, to understand the predictors of the risks of obesity and the predictors of response to treatment; and the Obesity Treatments to Improve Diabetes project, a collaboration between Ulster University and Dasman Diabetes Institute funded by MMI-Kuwait.