Anja Leist is Associate Professor in Public Health and Ageing, Vice-Head of the Institute for Research on Socio-Economic Inequality, and Special Advisor to the Rectorate on the topic of research assessment at the University of Luxembourg. 

Anja’s research focuses on cognitive ageing and dementia and is funded, among others, by the European Research Council (CRISP, grant agreement no. 803239), where she and her team investigate socioeconomic inequalities and sex/gender differences in dementia risk. Several publications use statistical learning, such as transfer learning, to improve, among other goals,dementia classification in large surveys. She also has done research on mindfulness and health promotion training for vulnerable populations (MEDITAGING; funder: FNR, ref. 15240063) and the role of the gut microbiome in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI-BIOME; funder: University of Luxembourg’s Institute for Advanced Studies). 

Anja is elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and serves on Review Panels and Scientific Advisory Boards, for instance of the national dementia prevention programmepdp. She collaborates with the Luxembourg Institute of Health and the University of Basel on social and ethical aspects of AI in digital health tools and healthcare at large. Since February 2023, she has been working with knowledge translation expert Melissa Chan to develop the digital platform GetBrainHealthy for brain health promotion at the workplace.