Rate My Professor Maria Fiatarone Singh

Professor Maria A. Fiatarone Singh, MD, FRACP, is a geriatrician holding the inaugural John Sutton Chair of Exercise and Sport Science in the Faculty of Health Sciences and a Professorship in Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney since 1999. She earned a B.A. in French Literature and Biology from Stanford University (1976), an M.D. from the University of California, San Diego (1981), completed an internal medicine residency at Boston University (1981-1984), and geriatric medicine fellowship training at the University of California, Los Angeles (1985-1988). Her earlier career included positions as Instructor and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division on Aging at Harvard Medical School (1987-1998), Assistant and Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical School (1987-2002), Chief of the Exercise Physiology and Body Composition Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (1987-2002), and Senior Research Associate at Hebrew SeniorLife (1987-present). She is also Founder and Director of the Fit for Your Life Foundation (1992-present) and Director of The Centre for Strong Medicine (2022-present).

Professor Fiatarone Singh's research specializes in exercise physiology integrated with medicine, particularly high-intensity progressive resistance training and multidomain interventions for frail older adults, dementia prevention, cognitive enhancement, type 2 diabetes, and conditions like Parkinson's disease and peripheral artery disease. She conducted the first randomized controlled trial of progressive resistance training in nonagenarians, demonstrating significant strength gains. Her prolific output includes over 269 publications with more than 24,000 citations, key works such as the SMART trial results on resistance training improving cognition in mild cognitive impairment (Mavros et al., Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2017), systematic reviews on exercise for cognitive function in diabetes (Zhao et al., European Review of Aging and Physical Activity, 2018), and books like Reichel's Care of the Elderly (co-author, 2016). She has received the Member of the Order of Australia (2022), Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (2001), Fellowship of the Gerontological Society of America (1988), USDA Scientist of the Year (1995), Herbert A. de Vries Research Award (1996), and American Geriatrics Society New Investigator Award (1990). At the University of Sydney, she coordinates postgraduate courses in exercise physiology, leads the Exercise Division at the Boden Institute and Charles Perkins Centre, and serves on editorial boards including The Journals of Gerontology.