Samantha Gardener

Samantha Gardener is a third year PhD student at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Her PhD is titled "Impact of Nutrition on Cognition and its Association with Blood and Brain Alzheimer Disease Related Biomarkers" and is under the supervision of Prof. Ralph Martins and Dr. Stephanie Rainey-Smith. Samantha graduated from Sussex University, England in 2007 with a BSc(Hons) in Molecular Genetics in Biotechnology.
Samantha is currently investigating dietary patterns and their association with cognitive function and Alzheimer's disease related imaging and blood biomarkers. Her data is collected as part of the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle Study of Ageing (AIBL). In 2012 Samantha published a paper in Translational Psychiatry titled "Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet and Alzheimer’s disease Risk in an Australian Population," showing that healthy controls have a higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet than mild cognitively impaired and Alzheimer's disease participants in the AIBL study.