Ex-Officio Member
Linda Bauld was appointed as Chief Social Policy Adviser to the Scottish Government on 1 April 2022. She holds the Bruce and John Usher Chair in Public Health in the Usher Institute, College of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on two main areas: the evaluation of complex public health interventions, and how research can inform public health policy. She currently leads two research Consortia - the Tobacco Control Capacity Programme, involving research teams in five countries in Africa and three in South Asia - and SPECTRUM, involving 10 UK Universities and partner organisations conducting research on the commercial determinants of health. She has also been involved in research on Covid-19, in particularly examining asymptomatic testing and behavioural responses to public health guidelines. Between 2014 and August 2021 she combined her academic roles with serving as Cancer Research UK’s cancer prevention adviser. Professor Bauld is a Trustee of Diabetes UK, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Faculty of Public Health, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Academy of Social Sciences. She was awarded an OBE in June 2021.
