The School of Allied Health and Life Sciences offers students vocationally-relevant, professionally accredited, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of the highest academic standards in the field of health, nutrition, and exercise sciences.
Students are taught in high quality specialist teaching facilities by expert staff, who are either research focused or specialised practitioners in their field or both.
We offer and continue to develop a portfolio of research informed programmes that are attractive to students. They will develop key transferable skills and experience real lif situations that will equip them to contribute to a modern global society.
Undergraduate programmes
The Nutrition undergraduate programme is accredited by the Association for Nutrition and graduates have been employed in health and industry settings and as self-employed nutritionists running their own businesses. We also offer an undergraduate degree in sport and exercise nutrition.
The Sport Rehabilitation undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are both accredited by the professional body BASRaT. Students will complete a number of placements which has led to employment with sporting teams and organisations as well as in private clinics for previous graduates.
Providing links with local doctors and physiotherapists, the undergraduate Physiotherapy degree is accredited by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Learn from a team of dedicated lecturers with strong clinical experience and begin your career caring for others.
Postgraduate programmes
We encourage graduates to study on one of the Department’s group of postgraduate degrees whether it is the ground-breaking MSc in Nutrition and Genetics, the only course of its kind in Europe looking into links between our DNA and health or the new MSc in Chronic Disease Management. There is a clear need and demand for a course to supply the future workforce needed to look after our ageing population.
Our innovative MSc Applied Sports Nutrition which is mostly delivered over weekends allows those with sport and nutritional backgrounds to become practitioners in this exciting field and advise anyone from the recreational weekend warrior to the Olympic athlete.
We offer a very popular MSc in Physiotherapy (pre-registration). This programme is as a result of St Mary’s acting as a ‘first mover’ into the open market that the removal of NHS bursaries in this field created. These clinical programmes remain highly regulated and we have invested in specialist staff to deliver this programme where the demand for practitioners remains high.
For 2021 we are laucnhing a new distance learning MSc in Public Health. The degree covers a broad range of Public Health related topics and provides key competencies in Leadership and Management, which are highly valued in the ever-changing healthcare sector. It is taught by academics involved in national and international research activities, ranging from collaborations with WHO to key Public Health stakeholders such as NHS and the Office of the National Statistics.
Our degree programmes
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Updates from the Department
September 2022 - Nutrition Team welcomes new staff member Laura Ercolani
The Nutrition team are delighted to welcome Laura Ercolani to our team this academic year to support the delivery of our BSc Nutrition and BSc Sport and Exercise Nutrition programmes. Laura brings a wealth of applied experience to share with our students having previously worked as a project manager and nutritionist in paediatric obesity, delivered nutrition and wellbeing interventions for families and communities, and provided food education in schools and colleges. Laura will be contributing to numerous modules across the Nutrition programmes and will be supporting our students as they prepare to undertake their dissertation projects.
August-September 2022 - St Mary’s University at NuGOweek 2022 in Tarragona, Spain
The Nutrition & Genetics team from St Mary’s participated in the 18th Nutrigenomics Organisation Conference ‘NuGOweek 2022’ from 29th of August to 1st of September 2022 in Tarragona, Spain.
NuGO is the biggest European Association focusing on research development in the fields of molecular nutrition, personalised nutrition, nutrigenomics, and nutritional systems biology. St Mary’s University is among the 31 NuGO member Universities and Research Institutes all over Europe.
This year, St Mary’s was represented in the NuGO annual conference by Alexandra King and Angie Kapellou with poster presentations of their PhD projects: ‘The efficacy of genotype-based dietary or physical activity advice on behaviour change to reduce the risk of CVD, T2DM or obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis’ and ‘Genetics of caffeine and brain-related effects – a systematic review’, respectively.
The posters received the attention of esteemed scientists all over Europe and initiated interesting discussions on research being held at St Mary’s. Angie’s poster won the second best poster award among 70 amazing posters, with excellent feedback: ‘clear and concise communication of study objectives, outstanding visual appeal with excellent use of colour.’
September 2018
Catherine Graham, PhD student, was awarded the first prize for a scientific poster at the European Nutrigenomics Organisation (NuGO) conference. This outstanding achievement is a result of Catherine’s hard work towards her PhD.
NuGO has a strong reputation for its high standard s and scientific rigour and even though St Mary’s University was the smallest organisation that participated, we still compete at the highest level.
May 2018
Students from the Nutrition programmes at St Mary’s University, Twickenham have been awarded a Nutrition Society bursary to conduct research over the summer. The students, Iman Khwaia and Sebastien Chohan, have been awarded a research bursary of £2500 to conduct two pieces of research. Find out more...