PROFESSOR KAARIN J. ANSTEY
BA (Hons) Syd., PhD Qld., FASSA, FAPS
Kaarin Anstey is a Scientia Professor Anstey and ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Psychology. Kaarin completed her undergraduate and honours training in Psychology at the University of Sydney and her PhD at the University of QLD. After completing an NHMRC Postdoctoral fellowship at Flinders University and the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Kaarin moved to the Australian National University in 2001 where she later established the Centre for Research in Ageing, Health and Wellbeing. Anstey moved to the University of New South Wales in 2018 where she is the Director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.
Kaarin has been a Chief Investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (2011-17) and is Co-Deputy Director of the current ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (2017-2024) where she also co-leads the Cognitive and Decision Making Stream. Kaarin is Chair of the International Research Network on Dementia Prevention, and a member of the Governance Committee of the Global Council on Brain Health, an initiative supported by the American Association of Retired Persons and AgeUK.
Kaarin’s research programs focus on cognitive and mental health resilience, and the consequences and prevention of cognitive ageing and dementia. Kaarin also conducts research into older driver safety, wellbeing, and evaluates interventions to promote mobility and healthy ageing.
In the area of cognitive ageing and dementia risk reduction, Kaarin's program includes conduct and analysis of cohort studies, data synthesis, multidomain risk reduction trials and risk score development. Kaarin has been the Lead Chief investigator of the PATH Through Life Project since 2006 and a Chief Investigator on the project since 2001. PATH is a 20-year longitudinal study of mental health, wellbeing and cognitive function spanning the adult life course that has three cohorts called the 20s, 40s and 60s. Kaarin's team is also currently running the MyCoach trial which is evaluating a new memory support and lifestyle intervention for people with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment. Another trial underway is the Australian arm of the SHAPE clinical trial of a group intervention to improve the quality of life for people living with dementia. Kaarin's team has also recently developed a new risk assessment tool to enable individuals and researchers evaluated dementia risk based on the latest evidence. In the field if driving research, Kaarin's is currently running three projects - one randomised trial to improve older driver safety called 'Better drive', one naturalistic study of driving across a range of memory abilities, and a study of ADAS.