Saroja Voruganti

Saroja Voruganti is a Professor of Nutrition in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and a faculty member at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute, where she joined in 2013. She earned her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Dietetics from the Institute of Hotel Management in Mumbai in 1998, and a BSc (Hons) in Foods and Nutrition from the University of Delhi in 1985. Following her doctorate, she completed postdoctoral training in Genetic Epidemiology at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and served as Staff Scientist at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute before her appointment at UNC as Assistant Professor. She advanced to Associate Professor in 2019 and full Professor in 2024. Voruganti directs the Clinical Research Core at the Nutrition Research Institute, providing multidisciplinary services for human nutrition studies, and co-directs the Precision Nutrition Core at the Nutrition Obesity Research Center, which holds CLIA certification for genotyping services supporting nutrigenomic research.

Her research program in nutritional genomics investigates gene-nutrient interactions influencing metabolic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and purine metabolism-related neurodegenerative conditions, with a focus on ethnically diverse and underrepresented populations such as American Indians, Hispanics, Mexican Americans, Alaska Natives, and Parsi Zoroastrians. She has authored over 120 peer-reviewed articles, with 13 as senior author and 20 as first author, including 30 in top-tier journals. Notable publications include "Fine mapping and identification of serum uric acid loci in American Indians: The Strong Heart Family Study" (Scientific Reports, 2019), "Heterogeneity in metabolic responses to dietary fructose" (Frontiers in Genetics, 2019), "Nutritional Genomics of cardiovascular disease" (Current Genetic Medicine Reports, 2018), and "Serum uric acid concentrations and SLC2A9 genetic variation in Hispanic children: the Viva La Familia Study" (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2015). Voruganti teaches graduate courses in Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics and Introduction to Nutritional Epidemiology, and leads annual workshops on personalized nutrition with hands-on genetic data analysis. She serves as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Genetics, Frontiers in Nutrition, and Nutrition Reviews, and holds leadership positions in the International Society of Nutrigenetics/Nutrigenomics. Her honors include Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA, 2014) and inaugural Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition (FASN, 2025), recognizing her contributions to precision nutrition and health disparities research.

Professional Email: saroja@unc.edu