Prof. Joanne Ryan heads the Biological Neuropsychiatry and Dementia research unit in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (SPHPM). She initially trained as a molecular biologist, completing a University of Melbourne Science degree with honors in the Department of Biochemistry. She then obtained a Masters of Biostatistics through the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia, at Monash University. She completed in 2011 a PhD in neuropsychiatric epidemiology with the University of Melbourne and Université Montpellier 1, France. Having been awarded an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship in Public Health, she completed an initial post-doc at INSERM (in France) and then returned to Melbourne to develop skills and expertise in epigenetic epidemiology at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. In 2017, she was awarded an NHMRC Dementia Research Leadership fellowship, and in 2022, an NHMRC Investigator Grant (Leadership Level 1). She is the co-principal Investigator on the ASPREE-XT study of aging, and the CIA of the STAREE-Mind Clinical Trial substudy, investigating the effects of statins on cognitive aging and brain health. Her research in neuropsychiatric disorders is focused on preventative interventions and risk prediction, and understanding the biological underpinnings of these disorders, as well as biomarker identification (including epigenetics).