Sheila Skeaff

Sheila Skeaff is a distinguished nutritionist and researcher, recognized for her extensive contributions to understanding nutritional health, particularly iodine and food waste, and for her commitment to education and public health initiatives. After earning her MSc in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Guelph in 1988, Sheila Skeaff commenced her distinguished career at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, in mid-1989. She continued her academic pursuits, completing a PhD in Human Nutrition from the University of Otago in 2004, under the supervision of Christine Thomson. Throughout her early career, Professor Skeaff’s research was dedicated to the trace element status of populations, with a specific emphasis on iodine and fluoride in vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant women.

Her recent scholarly contributions include co-authoring ‘Burdens of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar-sweetened beverages in 184 countries’ in Nature Medicine (2025) and ‘More veg, less meat: The latest global update on a diet that’s good for people and the planet’ in The Conversation (2025). In 2024 alone, she co-authored multiple papers, including ‘Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages among children and adolescents in 185 countries between 1990 and 2018: Population based study’ in BMJ, and presented ‘The sodium, potassium, and iodine intake, and blood pressure of New Zealand school children’ at the NSNZ 58th Annual Conference. Her impactful research continues into 2023 with co-authored articles in Nature Communications and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, solidifying her position as a leading authority in nutrition and public health.