Susan C. J. Sumner, PhD, is Professor of Nutrition in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and Professor of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine. She directs the Metabolomics and Exposome Laboratory at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute and previously directed the Metabolomics Core for the UNC Nutrition Obesity Research Center and the Untargeted Analysis Core for the NIEHS Children’s Health Exposure Analysis Resource program. Sumner earned a B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Biology and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from North Carolina State University in 1982 and 1986, respectively, followed by postdoctoral training as a Staff Fellow in Spectroscopy at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute from 1986 to 1989. Her career spans roles at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, Paradigm Genetics, and RTI International, where she advanced from Scientist 1 to Senior Scientist 2, before joining UNC as Adjunct Professor of Nutrition in 2012 and achieving full professorship in 2016. She has served as Principal Investigator for the NIH Common Fund Eastern Regional Comprehensive Metabolomics Resource Core and holds grants from NIGMS, NIDDK, NIEHS, and NHLBI focused on biomarkers for drug-induced liver injury, nutrition-obesity research, exposure analysis, and cardiovascular disease mechanisms.

Sumner’s research employs metabolomics and exposome technologies to explore associations between endogenous metabolites and environmental exposures with health outcomes in precision nutrition, personalized medicine, maternal and child health, diabetes, kidney disease, toxicology, cancer, microbiome perturbations, and addiction. Key publications include “Untargeted Metabolomics: Biochemical Perturbations in Golestan Cohort Study Opium Users Inform Intervention Strategies” (2020, Frontiers in Nutrition), “Aldh1/2 Knockout Mouse Metabolomics Links the Loss of Mitochondrial Folate Enzyme to Deregulation of a Lipid Metabolism” (2020, Human Genomics), “Sex Modifies Metabolic Pathways Associated with Lipids in Untargeted Metabolomics: The CARDIA Study” (2025), and “Newborn Metabolomic Signatures of Maternal Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Exposure” (2023). She has received RTI International awards including Career Author Award, President’s Award, Outstanding Paper, and Best Paper Award for a 2014 Toxicological Sciences publication on isoniazid-induced steatosis. Sumner contributes to editorial boards of Metabolites, Frontiers in Nutrition, Journal of Toxicology, Journal of Applied Toxicology, and Metabolomics, and has chaired numerous NIH review panels, Gordon Conferences, and symposia on metabolomics and exposomics.

Professional Email: susan_sumner@unc.edu