About
Michelle completed her BSc with Honors in Human Genetics in 2003 at the University of Nottingham in the UK, and her PhD in Neuroscience at King's College London in 2010. She emigrated to Brisbane in 2012 and has completed two prestigious fellowships at QIMR Berghofer (Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Perpetual Foundation and an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Leadership Fellowship). She now leads the Neurogenetics and Dementia group.
Michelle specialises in genetic association studies (focusing on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease), neuroimaging genetics, genetic risk prediction, and Mendelian Randomisation analysis. Core aims are to improve understanding of the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease genetic risk factors, identify early disease and prodromal biomarkers and identify causal risk factors.
Michelle leads the PISA cohort study at QIMRB and the genetics, epidemiology and blood analysis streams. She has contributed to world-class consortia, including the Alzheimer’s Exome Sequencing Group and leading GWAS Meta-analysis consortia.
She is the Global Regional Lead for Oceania for the DEMON network, an international Network for data science and AI applied to dementia research, and Program Chair for the Alzheimer’s Association ISTAART PIA Artificial Intelligence for Precision Dementia Medicine.
Research Skills
Genetic Epidemiology, bioinformatics, cohort studies, genomics, genotyping, sequencing
Area of Interest
Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, aging, cognition, Neuroimaging