Dr. Sharon M. Donovan received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition at the University of California at Davis in 1983 and 1988, respectively. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, she joined the Faculty at UIUC in 1991 as an assistant professor of Nutrition. She was promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure and full professor in 1997 and 2001, respectively. In 2020, she was appointed the inaugural director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative at the University of Illinois. She served as president of the American Society for Nutrition (2011–2012) and the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation (2018–2020) and was a member of the 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee. Her research program focuses on the impact of human milk on intestinal development and the microbiome. She also participates in multi-disciplinary research on picky eating and childhood obesity.