Prof. Dr. Anja LEIST

Anja Leist is Associate Professor in Public Health and Ageing and Vice-head of the Institute for Research on Socio-Economic Inequality (IRSEI) in the Department of Social Sciences. She is expert on the topics of health inequalities, ageing, and cognitive ageing, with a social epidemiological and life course perspective. She had research stays at the universities of Luxembourg, Zurich/Switzerland, and Rotterdam/Netherlands, and was funded by several national and European funders, among them the European Research Council on the topic of cognitive ageing (CRISP, grant agreement no. 803239, 1.15 mio. EUR). 

The CRISP project investigates cognitive aging from a social and behavioral (risk reduction) perspective with a focus on inequalities related to education and gender, and applies new modeling techniques to improve dementia risk prediction. See all publications and updates on the CRISP project here.

Anja is elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. She serves as expert on the topics of dementia, health politics, and ageing on several advisory and editorial boards, committees, and working groups. Anja is Strategic Advisor to the World Young Leaders in Dementia network (WYLD) and represents the WYLD network on the World Dementia Council – see the global dialogue on early-career researchers in dementia here.

Anja is main supervisor of two doctoral students in Social Sciences (Jung Hyun Kim) and Psychology (Matthias Klee). She is co-supervising a doctoral student in Social Sciences (Sijmen van Schagen), and two doctoral students in Biology (Laure Pauly; Anne-Marie Hanff). She further supervises three postdocs: Dr Fabiana Ribeiro and Dr Anouk Geraets are postdocs on the ERC Cognitive Ageing project CRISP, and Dr Ana Carolina Teixeira Santos is postdoc on the MEDITAGING project funded by the FNR.

For a full CV, please click here.