Professor Sarah McNaughton

Professor

School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences

Overview

Professor McNaughton is Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics and Discipline Lead for Nutrition and Dietetics in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland and Health and Well-Being Centre for Research Innovation, School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland. She is an Accredited Practising Dietitian, Fellow of Dietitians Australia and a Registered Public Health Nutritionist.

She has over 20 years expertise in nutrition and dietetics and has published over 220 peer-reviewed papers (H-index=57). She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2003, and was subsequently appointed a Research Scientist in the MRC Centre for Human Nutrition Research (Cambridge, UK). She was employed at Deakin University from 2005 -2023. She has previously held nationally competitive fellowships from the ARC, Heart Foundation and NHMRC. I have received funding as a chief investigator on 27 externally funded project grants and tenders from NHMRC, ARC (Discovery, Linkage & LIEF), Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia Research Trust, World Cancer Research Fund, the World Health Organisation, Food Standards Australia New Zealand and VicHealth. She currently supervises 4 PhD students and has previoulsy supervised 14 PhD students to completion and 9 Honours students & 5 Masters students.

She leads a program of research that focuses on strengthening the evidence-base for public health nutrition strategies and interventions with a focus on epidemiological methods. She has particular interest in translation of evidence into guidelines and nutrition communication messages. Her research covers:

  • Developing novel methods for measuring and interpreting population dietary intakes
  • Understanding the role of foods, eating patterns and dietary patterns in health and wellbeing;
  • Understanding dietary behaviors and their determinants across the life-course
  • Understanding the role of food and nutrition literacy in dietary intake
  • Translation of dietary patterns research into nutrition interventions, strategies and policy.

She has served on over 20 national and international committees and advisory groups including for the IARC, WHO, Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, NHMRC, Heart Foundation, Australian Academy of Science National Nutrition Committee and Nutrition Australia. In September 2021, she was appointed Chair of the NHMRC Australian Dietary Guidelines Expert Review Committee.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy of Population Health, The University of Queensland
  • Masters (Coursework) of Nutrition and Dietetics, Queensland University of Technology
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics, Queensland University of Technology
  • Bachelor of Biomedical Science, The University of Queensland

Publications

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Available Projects

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Publications

Featured Publications

Book Chapter

  • McNaughton, Sarah A. (2020). Dietary patterns. Present Knowledge in Nutrition: Clinical and Applied Topics in Nutrition. (pp. 235-248) London, United Kingdom: Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-818460-8.00013-7

Journal Article

Conference Publication

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Completed Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.