Sarah L McKune,

Sarah L. McKune, MPH, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and currently the Interim Chair of the Department of Environmental and Global Health. She is jointly appointed between EGH and the Center for African Studies. She holds a B.A. in French and Sociology from Wofford College and earned a Master’s in Public Health from Emory University in 2002. She completed a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology at the University of Florida’s School for Natural Resources and the Environment in 2012 and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow for a collaborative effort between UF and the CGIAR’s collaborative research program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS).

In 2013, Dr. McKune joined PHHP as the Director of Public Health Programs, overseeing the campus and online MPH and Public Health Certificate programs for the College. In 2016, she joined UF’s Department of Environmental and Global Health in a joint appointment with the Center for African Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is affiliate faculty in the School for Natural Resources and the Environment and advises students from a variety of units across campus, including Sustainable Development, Anthropology, Food and Resource Economics, Medical Geography, Animal Sciences, Social Behavioral Sciences, and Sociology, as well as those operated by EGH, including Public Health and One Health.

Dr. McKune’s background in development informs her research, most of which is applied and focuses on global health nutrition and food security. She has significant experience in project design, implementation, training facilitation, and monitoring and evaluation. Her research utilizes mixed methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative in nature, and seeks to explain the complex, system dynamics that affect child growth and nutritional outcomes, including diverse factors such as household hygiene and sanitation, livestock ownership, climate change, and gender dynamics within the household. For the past 20 years she has worked with global health development programs, largely in the West African Sahel, but also in Nepal, Haiti, Uganda, and Ethiopia. Since 2015 she has served as the Health and Human Nutrition theme leader for the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Livestock System, working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists to improve the nutrition of children under five and pregnant and lactating women through research focused on livestock production and consumption of animal source foods. She leads a research laboratory made up of 15-20 trainees (students, postdocs, staff) and partners with academic, government, and non-governmental organizations in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania and Chad to conduct transformative community-based research that improves health outcomes of vulnerable populations.