Dr Amelia A Lake is a dietitian and public health nutritionist. Amelia works as a Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Teesside University and is Deputy Director of Fuse, The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health.  Amelia is the Fuse lead on the NIHR School of Public Health research theme ‘Health Places, Healthy Planet’.

Amelia’s research involves transdisciplinary collaborations to examine how the environment interacts with individual behaviours. Her current work is around healthy planning policy, food insecurity, energy drinks, mental health, Liver Disease and Obesity, workplace health, food systems, school food environments, the obesogenic environment and knowledge exchange.

Amelia has extensive experience of working with policy makers, practitioners, non-specialist audiences as well as academics, and has produced training programmes as well as short films. Amelia also runs a small charity called The David Ashwell Foundation funding research into a rare lung diseases affecting new born babies in memory of her son David.

Amelia received her first degree from Glasgow Caledonian University and worked in the National Health Service before taking up a research post with Newcastle University, where she completed a PhD and held a prestigious NIHR Post-doctoral Fellowship on the topic of Obesogenic Environments. One of the outcomes from this fellowship was the publication of a collected volume on Obesogenic Environments.

Other roles have included, Senior Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at Northumbria University, where in June 2010 she was awarded the Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO) Young Achiever Award for her Obesity research. Amelia's previous post was at Durham University where she was an Associate Professor in Knowledge Exchange. She joined Teesside University in November 2017 and was appointed to her Chair in 2019.  Amelia was appointed as Deputy Director of Fuse in March 2025, she has been an Associate Director for Fuse since 2017. Amelia is a Visiting Professor, Sheffield Hallam University (since 2024).

Amelia’s work around the impact of the food environment, food insecurity, energy drinks and health is highly policy relevant. In March 2024 Amelia was invited to give evidence at the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee, she also submitted written evidence.

Amelia has contributed to the Welsh Governments consultation around Food Environments and Energy Drinks.

In June 2018, Amelia was invited to give oral and written evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee on Energy Drinks.

Amelia represented the British Dietetic Association on the Public Health Responsibility Deal's Food Network High Level Steering Committee (2014-15). Amelia is a member of the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) Scientific Advisory Panel. Previously, Amelia was a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Task Group on 'Takeaways & Obesity' (Sept 2010) and was a member of the Food Standards Agency Register of Specialists for Social Science (April 2009).

In February 2020 Amelia was identified as one of Timewise Power 50 winners for her achievements in a senior leadership role while working part-time.

In 2019, Amelia was invited to the prestigious SciFoo Conference at Google in California and presented the energy drink research to the international participants.  

A founding member, Amelia is on the executive board for the NHSA Nutrition North Network.

Amelia is on the editorial board of Cities & Health and Nutrition Bulletin.

Amelia has been an ASO Trustee (2006-2010), a member of Nutrition Society Council (2007-2010) and also a Research Committee member for the British Dietetic Association (BDA) (2000 - 2005). Amelia was a co-founder of the North East Obesogenic Environment Network (NEOeN) www.neoen.org.uk and was the chair of the North East Obesity Forum (ASO regional group).

Amelia was a Beacon for Public Engagement Fellow as well as being a regular contributor to her profession's publications. Amelia is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has extensive experience of working with non-specialist audiences as well as academics, policy makers and with the media.