Sally Mackay

Sally’s career as a public health nutritionist has spanned three decades from working as a health promoter to academic. She began work with the Heart Foundation as a health promoter focusing on caterers and during this time completed a PGDip in Public Health. With a move to Nelson, she worked as a health promoter at the local public health unit and then with the Ministry of Health as senior advisor on the 2008/09 National Nutrition Survey. She completed a PhD at the University of Auckland with the INFORMAS research group on methods to monitor the cost and affordability of diets. This began a research career in monitoring food environments both in Aotearoa and globally with the INFORMAS network. She teaches population health nutrition at the University of Auckland and supervises Masters and PhD students. She is part of research teams developing the methods for the next national nutrition survey and evaluating the National Healthy Food and Drink Policy. Sally recently presented the keynote Muriel Bell lecture at the Nutrition Society of NZ conference in 2022 in recognition of her services to nutrition.