Melinda Mills

Melinda Mills is a Professor of Demography and Population Health, based in the Demographic Science Unit and Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. 

Mills’s research focus is on demography, biodemography and biosocial health, fertility and reproduction, applied statistics, complex trait genomics, geospatial inequalities and public health policy. She has examined the genetics of reproductive and complex trait behaviour and is Founder of Data4Science and GWAS Diversity Monitor.

Recent work focuses on providing a data-driven evidence base for public health interventions, including demographics, social-networks, geospatial factors, life-expectancy losses, mandatory vaccine certificates and vaccine hesitancy. 

Mills is a Special Advisor to the European Commissioner of the Economy, Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (2019-2029), ERC Advanced Grant CHRONO, and co-investigator on various grants including MapIneq (geospatial inequalities and the life course), European Social Science Genetics Network, ESRC/UKRI Connecting Generations Centre.

She sits on a number of international and national data and research-related committees (such as Our Future Health (UK), Health and Retirement Survey (US), LifeLines and ODISSEI (Netherlands), Centre for Longitudinal Studies Cohorts (UK)). 

Mills is an elected Fellow of the British Academy, received an MBE, Trailblazer Award, ORB Excellence in Impact Award, and Clifford C. Clogg Award for Mid-Career Achievement. She also holds a part-time position as Professor of Data Science and Public Health Policy, University of Groningen and Department of Genetics, University Medical Centre Groningen.