Sharon Ross, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Sharon Ross, Ph.D., M.P.H., joined PGNB as a program official in 2025. Her research interests include the role of human milk components, including oligosaccharides and extracellular vesicle cargo, in infant growth and development; mechanisms linking diet and microbiome/microbial metabolites to maternal and infant health and disease; the influence of nutrition on gene regulation/epigenetics in early life outcomes and chronic disease; and relationships between diet and adiposity in child health and disease. 

Prior to joining NICHD, Dr. Ross was a program director for many years with the Division of Cancer Prevention's Nutritional Science Research Group at NIH's National Cancer Institute (NCI). She managed a grant portfolio on the topic of diet and cancer prevention. Before NIH, Dr. Ross worked at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in scientific review and regulation development for health claim labeling. Before joining the FDA, Dr. Ross was a cancer prevention fellow in NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. 

Dr. Ross holds a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.P.H. with an emphasis in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. She completed her doctoral dissertation research in the Laboratory of Cellular Carcinogenesis and Tumor Promotion at NCI, where she studied the effects of retinoids in growth, differentiation, and cell adhesion. Dr. Ross also holds an M.S. in nutritional sciences from the University of Connecticut and a B.S. in nutrition and dietetics from the University of New Hampshire.