Rate My Professor Annika Sjoeholm

Annika Sjoeholm is a PhD candidate in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at the University of Otago's Dunedin School of Medicine. Her research centers on genetic disorders, specifically investigating the genetic deficiency of Chymotrypsin-like family member 3A (CELA3A) through a clinical and biochemical assessment of this rare heritable cause of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. This work is conducted in collaboration with the Biostatistics Centre in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine. Her PhD supervisors are Professor Stephen Robertson from Paediatrics and Child Health, Dr Zandra Jenkins, and Associate Professor Andrew Gray. Sjoeholm has also been associated with the Department of Women's and Children's Health at the Dunedin School of Medicine.

Sjoeholm's research contributions span pediatric endocrinology, diabetes management, and neuroendocrinology. She is the first author on 'Adrenal insufficiency in a child following unilateral excision of a dual-hormone secreting phaeochromocytoma' published in Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism Case Reports in 2015. Other key publications include 'Prior knowledge of blood glucose meter download data improves contemporaneous self-monitoring accuracy in adults with Type 1 diabetes mellitus' in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology in 2016, 'Exploring the motivations behind misreporting self-measured blood glucose in adolescents with type 1 diabetes' in the Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Disorders in 2016, and 'Region-, neuron-, and signaling pathway-specific increases in prolactin responsiveness in reproductively experienced female rats' in Endocrinology in 2011. In 2019, she received the Lady King Scholarship from the Dunedin School of Medicine and was recognized in the Health Research Excellence Awards in the Women's and Children's Health category. Earlier in her academic career, Sjoeholm was a medical student at the Dunedin School of Medicine, where she received scholarships as a Dunedin-based student in 2008, and she completed a Bachelor of Science with Honours in 2025.