Rate My Professor Sherly Parackal

Dr. Sherly Parackal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Health, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, Division of Health Sciences, University of Otago. Having migrated to New Zealand from Southern India in the mid-1990s, she has dedicated her career to public health research since 2010, with a focus on enhancing the health and well-being of ethnic migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly through addressing diet-related non-communicable diseases. Her academic qualifications include a BSc in Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology; a Postgraduate Diploma in Food Science and Nutrition; an MSc in Food Service Management and Dietetics; a Postgraduate Diploma in Nutritional Science; and a PhD in Nutritional Science. As research lead in non-communicable diseases epidemiology and prevention, she holds memberships in the Global Diabetes Research Network for South Asians (Global DISHA), Otago Global Health Institute, Public Health Association of New Zealand, Fetal Alcohol Network New Zealand, Nutrition Society of New Zealand, and is a life member of the Indian Dietetic Association.

Parackal's research specializations encompass diet-related non-communicable diseases in the Asia-Pacific region, migrant health, Asian health, ethnic-specific dietary assessment, and community-centred intervention design and implementation via co-design. She is the Principal Investigator of the EMIGRATE project, examining health trajectories of ethnic voluntary migrants in New Zealand, and leads a diabetes prevention initiative in Bandung, Indonesia, in partnership with Padjadjaran University's Faculty of Medicine. She supervises PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers on projects such as co-designing sustainable interventions for type 2 diabetes prevention among Indonesian adolescents, developing fitted portion sizes for a New Zealand South Asian Food Frequency Questionnaire, and improving service delivery for South Asian women with gestational diabetes. Her key publications include 'Codesigning the South Asian Diet and Activity Intervention (SADAI): Process and outcomes' (Public Health Nutrition, 2025, with S.M. Parackal and R. Brown); 'Dietary beliefs, knowledge and behaviour of NZ South Asians at risk for cardiovascular disease' (Proceedings of the Nutrition Society of New Zealand, 2024, with K. Coppell et al.); 'Co-designing the South Asian Diet and Activity Intervention (SADAI): Process and Outcomes' (2025); and 'Asian migrants navigating New Zealand primary care: a qualitative study' (2023). She directs numerous projects, including co-designing culturally appropriate resources for cardiometabolic disease risk reduction among South Asians, piloting digitized health interventions, and developing South Asian-specific dietary assessment tools.