Professor Anne Corbett

Anne Corbett is Professor in Dementia Research and Director for Business Engagement and Innovation for the Department of Health and Community Sciences. She is also the academic lead for the PROTECT study at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on cognitive health in ageing and how dementia might be prevented in older adults. 

Anne conducted her post-graduate PhD research at Imperial College in the field of molecular biology, infection and disease, giving her a grounding in molecular science and genetics. She then spent several years outside of academia working in research communications and implementation in the research team at Alzheimer’s Society UK. She returned to academia in 2011, applying her combined experience in basic science, dementia and translational research to dementia and ageing research. She spent four years at King’s College London where she developed a wide portfolio of dementia research ranging from online studies into risk reduction, drug discovery, clinical trials and care home research. She gained valuable experience in managing large programmes of research and built expertise in online clinical trial delivery, digital research, translational research and patient and public involvement. 

Professor Corbett led the development, launch and recruitment of the online PROTECT-UK study and built a portfolio of research into cognitive health in ageing, dementia prevention and large scale digital health research. Her portfolio includes large international cohort studies, online clinical trials, biomarker research and digital tools for brain health. Her research programmes span epidemiological, biomedical and interventional studies, in addition to a translational research pipeline of medical devices and digital platforms for improving health services. She holds funding from UK government, EU, NIH, charity and philanthropic funders and several industry-funded collaborations. Her PROTECT portfolio now supports over 100 collaborations and has generated over 160 publications to date.

Professor Corbett is open to hearing from prospective PhD students and early career researchers who are interested in working on the topics related to cognitive health, in particular with regards to biomarker, digital and data science.