Tracy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food at Monash University. She is a Registered Nutritionist (UK) with a research focus in Public Health Nutrition. Her research has evolved from dietary assessment and consumer understanding of portion size to the use of marketing techniques to improve health professional’s ability to communicate on social media to form the Monash Digital Nutrition Lab.

The Monash Digital Nutrition Lab is where the science of nutrition meets data science, human-computer interaction and communication. Our vision is for thriving communities where healthier choices are the easy and desirable option. Our mission is to improve health and well-being by co-creating fair and equitable food environments and harnessing the power of AI for social good. This grand challenge will take a village of scientists integrating concepts across disciplines to change systems. Collaborations with experts in the Monash Data Futures Institute, Action Lab, RMIT University, Monash University Malaysia and Monash School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine is the formula to support thriving communities. Our projects include Intake24 and MyFoodSwaps.

At Monash, she leads the research stream on Dietary Assessment Methodologies to provide specialist analysis and advice on suitable methods to assess dietary intake. She has advised government departments in Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland on the assessment of dietary intakes and consumer understanding of portion size. 

Dr McCaffrey is currently chair of the inaugural Communications Portfolio and International Liasion Officer for the Nutrition Society of Australia and Trustee of the Australian Nutrition Trust Fund.

Tracy was co-investigator and project co-ordinator on Communicating Health, an NHMRC funded project, led by the late Dr Cate Lombard. The team would like to acknowledge Cate’s passion and advocacy in Public Health Nutrition. We honour Cate's memory by continuing the work she started in CommHealth. The study design of CommHealth aims to understand how and why young adults use social media to talk about their health. We have created a toolkit from 19 peer-reviewed papers, 1 book and a book chapter to assist health professionals in communicating with young adults on the ever-evolving social media platforms.