Rate My Professor Lindsay Macnaughton

Dr Lindsay Macnaughton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University, a position she has held since 2020 after joining from the sportscotland Institute of Sport. Her research focuses on sport and exercise nutrition, body composition assessment and best practice, athlete health and welfare, low energy availability, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs), and applied nutrition strategies for performance. She earned her PhD from the University of Stirling in 2016, with a thesis exploring dietary protein nutrition and its impact on muscle protein synthesis following resistance exercise. Macnaughton is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and actively supervises doctoral students in sport and exercise nutrition-related topics, including Holly Brown, Isaac Eastham, Dean Schiller, and Sarah Wells. She leads interdisciplinary projects, such as a recent collaboration with Applied Monitoring Ltd as Principal Investigator on innovative non-invasive technology for measuring blood lactate levels, involving post-doctoral researcher Amy Booth and technicians Rob Hunter and Ryan DeOrio.

Macnaughton has made significant contributions to her field through high-impact publications and international collaborations. Notable works include 'Best practice recommendations for body composition considerations in sport to reduce health and performance risks' (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2023), co-authored as part of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus subgroup; 'The impact of dietary protein supplementation on recovery from resistance exercise-induced muscle damage: A systematic review with meta-analysis' (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2023); 'Milk protein ingestion does not enhance recovery from muscle-damaging resistance exercise in untrained males and females' (Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2023); and earlier seminal papers like 'The response of muscle protein synthesis following whole-body resistance exercise is greater following 40 g than 20 g of ingested whey protein' (Physiological Reports, 2016). As a member of the IOC Expert Working Group on body composition, she has helped develop global best practice guidelines. Her influence extends to public engagement via BMJ blogs on body composition and REDs, articles for The Conversation, expert statements for the Chartered Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, science festivals, community talks, and invited keynote speeches at conferences such as the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry and the Swiss Sport Nutrition Society.