Credit: Eva Kemps

Kemps' research focuses on food cravings and how they can affect a person's everyday life. She is working on building techniques that can assist people in conquering their food cravings so that they can get back to doing the more important things.

Born in Belgium, Kemps grew up in South Africa before returning to her birthplace to study at Ghent University, where she completed her PhD on the characteristics of visual and spatial short-term memory.

It was during her time at the university, working on her thesis as well as teaching and supervising students, that she realised she liked the idea of being an academic full time. Towards the end of her PhD, Kemps was surprised to land a job at Flinders University in South Australia, where she's been researching food cravings for the past eight years alongside her research partner Marika Tiggeman.

"I was inspired by work in the field of cigarette cravings," she says, which got her thinking whether or not the same philosophy could be applied to food cravings.

Kemps and Tiggeman had previously studied dieting behaviour together, so looking into why food cravings occurred seemed like a natural step in a new direction of research. They have applied the visual techniques of cigarette cravings to that of food cravings, and found that, "there seemed to be an imagery-rich component to [people's] food cravings", says Kemps. Using cognitive skills "we can manipulate how vivid those images can be in those peoples minds", she adds.

Using these findings, Kemps and Tiggeman are developing techniques that could be used to help control food cravings. These include imagining and being around conflicting smells and images, which can hinder the cravings. Kemps says the trials on their techniques have been successful so far, but further research out in the field is required before they can make anything concrete.