Short presentation

Lea Ellen Matthiessen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS) at the University of Copenhagen. She is affiliated with the section Nutrition and Health. She holds an MSc in Food Technology from the Technical University of Denmark and a BSc in Nutritional Sciences and Home Economics from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

Lea is interested in how the food system can be transformed from a consumer perspective with a nutritional focus. Her research aims to contribute to a better understanding of complex global challenges, so-called “wicked problems”, impacting planetary health and social equity. During her PhD, she specialised in dietary transitions and explored how healthy and sustainable diets can be implemented from a systems perspective. Her work included analyses of food composition in private households and public food services, the development of a Sustainable and Healthy Diet Index, and investigations into organic food shares and food waste.

She collaborates with interdisciplinary stakeholders to understand how interventions can be effectively implemented. She applies system dynamics methodology to evaluate existing initiatives and identify feedback mechanisms within the food system. Currently, her research focuses on the relationship between food processing and nutritional quality.

Primary fields of research

• Healthy and sustainable diets
• Transformation of food systems
• System dynamics models

Knowledge of languages

• German
• Danish
• English
• Spanish

Current research

Currently, Lea is involved in the UPDATE project (Understanding Processed Foods and Their Health Effects), which explores the relationship between food processing, nutritional quality, and health outcomes. She is particularly interested in the synergistic interplay between processing and nutrition, as well as how consumers perceive and understand processed foods. Her research interest also considers affordability and practical applicability, framed within a systems understanding of food and health. The project aims to build a scientific network that contributes to knowledge and lays the foundation for future long-term intervention studies on highly processed foods.