Professor Sarah McNaughton is Discipline Lead for Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Queensland. She is a nutritional epidemiologist and Fellow of Dietitians Australia and a Registered Public Health Nutritionist with the Nutrition Society of Australia.  She has over 25 years expertise in nutrition science, has published over 240 peer-reviewed papers. She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2003, and previously held roles at the MRC Centre for Human Nutrition Research (Cambridge, UK) and Deakin University where she held four research fellowships from NHMRC, ARC and Heart Foundation.

Professor McNaughton leads an internationally recognised research program that focuses on the role of foods, eating patterns and dietary patterns in health and wellbeing and the translation of dietary patterns research into practice and policy, underpinned by innovative methodologies creating a paradigm shift in the way population diets are assessed. Her research on diet quality and dietary patterns has informed national and international dietary guidelines, position statements and local, national and international policy documents.

She has served on a range of national and international committees and advisory groups for the World Health Organization, NHMRC, Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, Australian Academy of Science, Oceanic Nutrition Leadership Program, Council of Deans of Nutrition & Dietetics (Australia and New Zealand), and in September 2021, she was appointed Chair of the NHMRC Australian Dietary Guidelines Expert Committee.