Roger Dixon, PhD
Primary tabs
JAD profile
Affiliation(s):
University of Alberta
Areas of Interest:
longitudinal studies, Alzheimer's disease biomarkers, biomarkers of cognitive decline, Alzheimer's disease genetics, metabolomics
Biography & Research:
Roger A. Dixon (University of Alberta) is Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Cognition and Aging, Professor of Psychology (Science), Director of the Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS), and member of the Alberta Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute. He has held previous appointments at Max Planck Institute (Berlin) and University of Victoria (Canada), as well as several international guest positions. His recent recognitions include the 2013-14 Baltes Award for Distinguished Career Research in Aging (from the American Psychological Association) and two consecutive five-year terms as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) MERIT Award recipient. The VLS, which features an international team of collaborators and trainees, has been funded continuously for over 25 years by NIH (National Institute on Aging) and other sources. It is a large-scale, multi-cohort, epidemiological study of neurocognitive, biological, genetic, environmental, educational, lifestyle (social, cognitive, physical), and health changes in aging. Current research emphases include examining (1) dynamic, interactive, and synergistic functions of risk, protective, and resilience markers representing multiple domains of aging, and (2) how these markers influence trajectories, transitions and outcomes in healthy, normal, impaired, and neurodegenerative changes. In Alberta, he is co-organizer of the 2016 and 2018 international conferences on Promoting Healthy Brain Aging and Preventing Dementia: Research and Translation, held in the spectacular Rocky Mountain township of Banff. In Canada, he is an original member of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, to which he contributes leadership activities in the Biomarkers Platform and Biomarkers Team. In the U.S.., he was co-organizer of the 2017 conference sponsored by the National Academies of Science Medicine Engineering on alternative pathways to Alzheimer’s disease.
