Carol Brayne

Carol is a medically qualified epidemiologist and public health academic. She has pioneered the study of dementia in populations. Carol’s principal area of research has been longitudinal studies of the health of older people, with a focus on the brain, from a public health perspective. This included pioneering work bringing biology to populations including the creation of brain banks for medical research from population studies. She held the Professorship of Public Health Medicine from 2001 to 2024 at the University of Cambridge, and is now Professor Emeritus and Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry.

After joining Cambridge in 1985 during her MRC training Fellowship after gaining MRCP and MSc Epidemiology, Carol developed deep phenotyping in representative populations of older people including brain donation in both the Fens and Cambridge City (Cambridge City over 75 Cohort). She was research leader from 1989, later becoming lead principal investigator, in the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies studies. A longitudinal multicentre study, this multidisciplinary population based set of studies has examined cognitive function and health in older people since the late 80s. Its results have informed national policy and now underpin our wider understanding of dementia: showing it can occur without the expected changes in brain pathology and that such changes, when they do occur, do not inevitably lead to dementia. And that, age for age, dementia is less common than it was 30 years ago.

She set up and for many years led the masters programme in Epidemiology at the University, as well as teaching and training for epidemiology and public health within the Department of Public Health and Primary Care. She was Head of Department from 1999-2001.

Alongside her Directorship of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health and, more recently, Co-directorship of Cambridge Public Health, Carol has held or holds the position of Faculty of Public Health’s Academic & Research Committee Chair, Royal College of Physicians’ Special Advisor, NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus, National Institute of Health Research School for Public Health Camridge University principal investigator, NIHR CLAHRC, ARC and BRC themes leader and co-chair of the Alzheimer’s Society Research Strategy Council and Chair of Wellcome Trust Expert Reference Group for Population Health. She set up and led The Public Health of Ageing Research Unit for decades, an involved team of specialised dementia and ageing population researchers whose work includes specific risk reduction trials, studies of ageing and technology, age-friendly cities, as well as the impact of ageing and dementia in the populations of low and middle-income countries. She is a member and co-deputy chair of the National Council on Bioethics of the United Kingdom bringing the perspectives of public health, neuroscience and medicine to the Council.

A fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Carol has been listed among the highest cited scholars in the world across all disciplines and was awarded a CBE for services to public health medicine in the Queen’s 2017 Honours.