Harold R. Sandstead, M.D., graduated from Cotner College in 1927. Upon graduation from the medical school of the University of Nebraska, he interned at the University Hospital at Omaha. He later joined the U.S. Public Health Service and was assigned to the Marine Hospital in Cleveland. After an additional year of training at Johns Hopkins, Sandstead went to New York and worked on a cooperative nutrition program at Cornell Medical School.

Sandstead was later made chief of the Nutrition Branch of the Public Health Service. When the nutrition branch was terminated due to budgetary limitations, Sandstead was assigned to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he initiated a study of buccal mucosal changes and their possible relation to nutrition. He had an active part in the teaching and training program of the Division of Nutrition of the Medical School. He also served as the first executive director of the Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Defense. Sandstead passed away in 1955.