Rate My Professor Sarah McNaughton

Professor Sarah McNaughton is Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics and Discipline Lead for Nutrition and Dietetics in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences within the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Queensland. She is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, Fellow of Dietitians Australia, and Registered Public Health Nutritionist with nearly 30 years of expertise in nutritional epidemiology and public health nutrition. McNaughton earned her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in Population Health from the University of Queensland in 2003, along with a Postgraduate Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics and a Masters (Coursework) in Nutrition and Dietetics from Queensland University of Technology. After her PhD, she served as a Research Scientist at the MRC Centre for Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge, UK, and held positions at Deakin University from 2005 to 2023 prior to her current appointment at UQ. She currently supervises five PhD students and has previously supervised 16 PhD students to completion, nine Honours students, and eight Masters students.

McNaughton's research program centers on strengthening evidence for public health nutrition through epidemiological methods, including developing novel approaches to measure and interpret population dietary intakes, examining the role of foods, eating patterns, and dietary patterns in health and wellbeing, investigating dietary behaviors and determinants across the life-course, and translating findings into nutrition interventions, guidelines, and policy. Key areas encompass diet quality, cardiometabolic health, obesity, food and nutrition literacy, food security, and chronic disease associations. She has authored over 242 peer-reviewed papers, achieving an h-index of 60, with highly cited publications such as 'The clustering of diet, physical activity and sedentary behavior in children and adolescents: a review' (2014), 'Skipping breakfast: longitudinal associations with cardiometabolic risk factors in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study' (2010), and 'An index of diet and eating patterns is a valid measure of diet quality in an Australian population' (2008). As chief investigator, she has secured funding from 27 grants including NHMRC, ARC, Heart Foundation, WHO, and others. McNaughton has held competitive fellowships from NHMRC, ARC, and Heart Foundation, chaired the NHMRC Australian Dietary Guidelines Expert Review Committee in 2021, and contributed to over 20 national and international committees such as WHO, IARC, and Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance. She leads the Nutrition and Dietetics research theme in UQ's Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation.