I studied medicine at Nottingham University (1970-5), including an inter-collated degree in community medicine, and obtained an MSc in epidemiology from LSHTM in 1981, and a DM in 1985, holding a Wellcome Trust fellowship in clinical epidemiology during this time.  I trained in primary care and subsequently in geriatric medicine and have held chairs in geriatric medicine (London & Barts 1989-92), clinical epidemiology (Royal Free, 1992-1998), and epidemiology of ageing (University of Bristol, 1998-2005).  I joined LSHTM in October 2005. I am a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol. I was co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Epidemiology (2000 - 2016) and  coordinating editor of the Cochrane Heart Group (1998 - 2014).  I chaired the Wellcome Trust Populations & Public Health funding committee (2005-7). I was a non-executive board member of National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) (2005-8) and was a member of the NICE Internatinoal advisory committee. In 2008 moved to New Delhi following awards of Wellcome Trust grants to work with Public Health Foundation of India to build capacity for public health activities and to establish a South Asia Network for Chronic Disease research. I retired in May 2014 and continued research roles as a member of the Joint Global Health Trials funding committee (2012 - 2020) and am chair of the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance clinical and public health fellowship committee (2020-). I chair the Scientific Advisory Committee for the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol.