5 minutes with… Dr Kim Way
With over 10 years of clinical experience as an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and an impressive research profile, Dr Kim Way is an emerging international leader in the field of exercise physiology for cardiometabolic diseases. Dr Way has secured over $1m in research funding to date from several prestigious national and international sources.
Q. What’s your research focus in a nutshell?
My research program centres on providing pragmatic exercise training and testing solutions to identify and manage cardiovascular disease in a range of cardiometabolic populations.
Q. What’s the best piece of advice you could give to an ECR?
Great science takes great patience – it is really easy to get caught up in the “publish or perish” culture of academia, but it is important to believe in your research and remember trials take time to complete to get important and impactful data. Additionally, a big part of research is relationships! Get to know your colleagues and invest time to foster these relationships – better research happens when you can learn from people who have expertise or experiences beyond what you know. It’s from these relationships where you can find collaborators for life (or career!)
Q. What’s something a lot of people don’t know about you?
I used to play classical guitar – don’t ask me to pick up a guitar anymore, can’t really play a tune anymore! Happy to play the triangle though 😊
Q. What’s your research ‘big picture’? What would you like to see change?
There are many ways that exercise testing seems to be underutilised, which could actually tell us a lot about health status beyond just fitness levels. In future, I hope to see that exercise testing becomes part of routine practice in a wide range of chronic diseases. Additionally, increasing accessibility and engagement in regular exercise is vital in primary and secondary prevention of disease, so I do hope we have made leaps and bounds particularly in minority groups, to living more active lives.
Q. What’s your favourite food and/or physical activity?
Food: This is very difficult since I love lots of food, but I am half-Filipino, and nothing beats my mum’s chicken adobo 😊
Physical activity: There’s two at the moment: Running has always been a go to – just really boosts my mental health and love being outdoors. Powerlifting: the challenge of getting strong through 3 awesome compound lifts 😊
Find out more about Kim’s research here.
