Rate My Professor Dane Baker

Dane Baker serves as Senior Professional Practice Fellow (Auckland) in the Department of Human Nutrition within the Sciences Division at the University of Otago. His professional role integrates teaching, research, and practical application in human nutrition, with a strong emphasis on performance nutrition for elite athletes. Baker contributes to the academic community through supervision of postgraduate research projects, including theses on the effects of menthol mouth swills on high-intensity exercise performance and the use of continuous glucose monitoring as a tool for assessing relative energy deficiency in sport. His career also extends to high-performance sports environments, where he provides nutritional support to professional teams such as the New Zealand Warriors and has previously worked with the Chiefs Super Rugby franchise.

Baker's research focuses on nutritional strategies to optimize athletic performance, recovery, and health in elite team sport athletes, particularly rugby players. Key publications include 'The barriers and facilitators of improving energy availability amongst elite female athletes' (2024, The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness), 'A 0.1% L-Menthol Mouth Swill in Elite Male Rugby Players Has No Effect on 40-min Rugby-Specific Repeated High-Intensity Exercise Performance' (2023, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research), 'Hepcidin and iron: novel findings for elite female rugby Sevens players' (2020, European Journal of Sport Science), 'Nutrition for Adolescent Female Team Sport Athletes: A Review' (2020, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition), 'Body Image Among Elite Rugby Union Players' (2019, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research), 'Effects of Chronic Cold-Water Immersion in Elite Rugby Players' (2019, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research), 'No Association between Vitamin D and Acute Respiratory Tract Infections Amongst Elite New Zealand Rugby Players and Rowers' (2019), 'Feeding the Human Superorganism—Food and Diet Quality Are Key to a Healthy Future' (2022, Journal of Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals), and 'Adding omega-3 fatty acids to a protein-based supplement during pre-season training results in reduced muscle soreness and the better maintenance of explosive power in professional Rugby Union players' (2018, European Journal of Sport Science). These works demonstrate his impact on understanding nutritional interventions in sports science.