Anthony is a lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at UniSC. He is also an Accredited Practicing Dietitian and has had experience working with a variety of patients in the Private Practice sector. Anthony was awarded his doctorate at Flinders University in South Australia where he evaluated portable methods of body composition assessment against DEXA in older adults with hip fracture.
Dr Villani’s primary research interests include skeletal muscle health and functional status in healthy ageing, including identification of sarcopenia and frailty in nutritionally vulnerable older adults, functional and body composition assessment in older adults and the application of the Mediterranean diet for healthy ageing and disease prevention. Dr Villani is also an advocate for providing research opportunities and supervision for research students and has a strong track record of publishing with his research students. Dr Villani also holds a DXA license for the assessment of lean body mass and bone health for research purposes.
Dr Villani is also passionate about engaging teaching and learning methodologies which maximize student learning outcomes and fosters life-long learning. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Professional Memberships
- Dietitians Association of Australia
- Australia and New Zealand Society for Sarcopenia and Frailty Research
- Nutrition Society of Australia
Research Projects
| Project Name | Designing a graduate ePortfolio: the expectations of industry |
| Investigator/s | Dr A Hamilton (lead), T Downer, Dr B Flanagan, Dr S Burkhart, Dr A Villani, B Lucas, Dr A Henderson, Dr C Davis, M Small, and Dr J Taylor |
| Funding body | USC Commissioned Grant A$15,000 |
| Year | 2016/2017 |
Potential Research Projects for HDR & Honours Students
- Nutrition and Ageing
- Sarcopenia/Frailty/Cachexia
- Functional and Body Composition assessment in older adults
- Mediterranean diets: application in healthy ageing and disease prevention
Research areas
- Identification of sarcopenia and frailty in nutritionally vulnerable older adults
- Functional decline in older adults
- Skeletal muscle health and ageing
- body composition assessment
- Nutrition and healthy ageing
- Mediterranean Diets: application towards healthy ageing and disease prevention
Teaching areas
- Introduction to Dietetics
- Nutrition Assessment
- Principals of Nutrition
- Research supervision of Honours and HDR students
Dr Villani’s areas of expertise include nutrition and healthy ageing, skeletal muscle health in ageing and the application of the Mediterranean Diet in healthy ageing and disease prevention.