Rate My Professor Sarah Harris

Dr Sarah Harris is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Otago, Christchurch, within the Faculty of Medicine. She holds qualifications of MBChB, DCH, PhD, and FRACP in Paediatrics. As a neonatal paediatrician and researcher, her work centers on the long-term outcomes of individuals born very preterm or with very low birth weight. Her research encompasses cardiovascular structure and function, mental health outcomes, socioeconomic disparities, fertility, romantic and sexual relationships, physical activity levels, cognitive function, visuospatial processing, and biomarkers of ageing in this cohort. She leads the New Zealand 1986 Very Low Birthweight Follow-up Study, having succeeded Emeritus Professor Brian Darlow, and contributes to international collaborations involving individual participant data meta-analyses.

Harris has earned major awards including a three-year Heart Foundation Research Fellowship in 2020 for full-time research on cardiovascular health, a Freemasons New Zealand Fellowship in Paediatrics from 2013 to 2016 investigating NTpBNP levels and lung disease severity in preterm infants, and a Canterbury Medical Research Foundation Clinical Research Fellowship for a longitudinal study on cardiovascular effects of very preterm birth at adolescence. Key publications include 'Outcomes in Early Adulthood for Very Preterm and Very Low Birth Weight Individuals: Evidence from Multi-National Cohorts' (2026, Journal of Pediatrics: Clinical Practice), 'New Zealand 1986 Very Low Birthweight Follow-up Study: The Third Decade' (2025, New Zealand Medical Journal), 'Socioeconomic Outcomes in Very Preterm/Very Low Birth Weight Adults: Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis' (2025, Pediatric Research), 'Fertility of Young Adults Born Very Preterm/Very Low Birth Weight: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis' (2025, Annals of Epidemiology), and 'Romantic and Sexual Relationships of Young Adults Born Very Preterm: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis' (2024, Acta Paediatrica). She has presented at conferences, including on premature birth and long-term cardiovascular health at the 2025 Queenstown Research Week Heart Satellite Meeting. Her 34 publications have garnered 226 citations.