Professor Deborah Prentice became the University of Cambridge’s 347th Vice-Chancellor on July 1, 2023.

An eminent psychologist, Professor Prentice carried out her academic and administrative career at Princeton University, which she first joined in 1988. She rose through the academic ranks and took on administrative responsibilities of increasing scope, chairing the Department of Psychology for 12 years, serving as Dean of Faculty for three years, and then serving six years as Provost, with primary responsibility for all academic, budgetary, and long-term planning issues.

Her academic expertise is in the study of social norms that govern human behaviour – particularly the impact and development of unwritten rules and conventions, and how people respond to breaches of those rules. She has edited three academic volumes and published more than 50 articles and chapters, and she has specialised in the study of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and gender stereotypes.

The University Council nominated Professor Prentice for appointment as Vice-Chancellor in September 2022.

Dr Louise Lafortune is a Principal Research Associate at Cambridge Public Health and leads its Lifecourse and Ageing research pillar.

She believes older people should be able to live full, engaged lives in their chosen communities. Her research aims to promote healthy lifespans and equity, targeting systems, interventions and technologies that help people maintain their independence and quality of life as they age. Using a multidisciplinary lens, her recent work looks at the social return on investment of age-friendly and ageing well approaches; the mitigation of frailty in older adults; and the developing area of ageing and sustainability.

Louise is Principal Investigator (PI) for both the School for Public Health Research (SPHR) and the Social Return on Investment of Age Friendly Communities Public Health Research programme. She leads the Population Evidence and Data Science theme for the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England; co-leads the SPHR Public Mental Health programme. She currently serves on the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, and regularly sits on research/policy advisory boards and international funding panels.

She holds a dual PhD in Public Health (Université de Montreal and Université de Paris) and nine years of industry engagement in clinical trials, health economics and outcomes research.

Rik Henson is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, with a special interest in the brain bases of memory, aging and dementia. His first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge was followed by a Masters in Artificial Intelligence in Edinburgh, before returning to Cambridge for a PhD in cognitive psychology. He held postdoctoral fellowships at University College London, where he developed expertise in neuroimaging. In 2004, he returned to Cambridge, where he has led a research group at the MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit (CBU), and has been Deputy and Acting Director over the years. He has been President of the British Neuroscience Association, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. He is also Director of the virtual Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (CamCAN).