People
The Healthy Lifespan Institute brings together a wealth of expertise in multimorbidity and healthy ageing. Our renowned team includes researchers who are considered leaders in their field and ranked among the top 40 researchers globally for the quality of their scientific outputs.
Core team and directors
Professor Alan Walker
Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology
Ageing, social analysis, social policy, social planning, social gerontology
Professor Ilaria Bellantuono
Professor in Musculoskeletal Ageing
Multiple age-related disease, preventing or reversing ageing of stem cells, diseases of the musculoskeletal system
Professor Sherif El-Khamisy
Professor of Molecular Medicine
DNA repair, topisomerase, mitochondria
Executive board team leads
Professor Sheila Francis
Professor of Cardiovascular Biology
Modulating vascular cell function, experimental models of cardiovascular systems, coronary artery disease
Professor Elizabeth Goyder
Professor in Public Health and honorary consultant in Public Health at Public Health England
Public health, inequalities in health, physical activity, collaboration with practitioners and communities, knowledge mobilisation, evidence synthesis
Professor Renee Timmers
Personal Chair, Music Psychology
music and emotion, multisensory experiences of music and sounds, nonverbal expression and communication, Humlab, Music Mind Machine research centre
Dr Maria-Cruz Villa-Uriol
Lecturer
Computational imaging, modelling techniques, composition of scientific workflows, cardiovascular domain
Professor Jason Heyes
Associate Dean for Impact and Engagement
Employment relations, employment rights, job quality, underemployment, labour administration
Dr Elizabeth Williams
Senior Lecturer
Diet and intestinal health, biomarkers of colorectal cancer, the role of butyrate and folate on colorectal carcinogenesis, nutrition, health and wellbeing of older adults
Professor Lynda Wyld
Professor of Surgical Oncology
Breast cancer in older women: cancer outcomes, risk prediction model development and validation, decision support, quality of life, outcome modelling. Psychosocial outcomes for women with familial high breast cancer risk. Epigenetic modifiers of the BRCA gene promotor in collaboration with Professor Angie Cox
Professor Thomas Webb
Professor of Psychology
Self-regulation, behaviour change, motivation
Dr Tony Ryan
Reader in Older People, Care and the Family
Sociology of ageing, palliative and supportive care, dementia/stroke care practice
Professor Paul Martin
Sciences Professor of Sociology
Epigenetics, science in social policy, novel biosocial concepts, genomics and personalised medicine