Ian H Robertson - Biography#

Ian Robertson is Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin where he was the founding director of Ireland’s only Institute of Neuroscience, as well as Dean (Vice President) of Research from 2004--07. He is currently co-director of the Global Brain Health Institute and was the first psychologist in Ireland to be elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is a visiting Professor at University College London and a visiting scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, Toronto. From 1991 to 1999 he was a senior scientist at the Cambridge MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. . A graduate of Glasgow University, he gained his MPhil and PhD degrees at the University of London, where he qualified in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Association for Psychological Science (USA). He was a member of the Wellcome Trust Neuroscience Committee from 2006-13.

He has published over 400 peer reviewed articles, including in Nature, Brain and Journal of Neuroscience and academic books on alcohol problems (Controlled Drinking, Problem Drinking), neuropsychology (Handbook of Neuropsychology, Volume 9, with J. Grafman) and and neurorehabilitation (Cognitive Neurorehabilitation 2nd edition, CUP with D.Stuss and G. Winocur). He has also created a number of neuropsychological tests in regular clinical use (e.g. Test of Everyday Attention). A former regular science contributor to the London Times and a columnist for the British Medical Journal he has written four multiply-translated popular science books including 'Mind Sculpture' and “The Stress Test”. He secured the largest ever philanthropic gift in the history of Ireland to establish the Global Brain Health Institute, a unique joint programme with University of California San Francisco) training leaders in dementia prevention worldwide.

He has had numerous collaborations with colleagues across Europe and has trained large numbers of European students and Fellows at the Institute of Neuroscience he established in 2005. He was co-leader of the EU-funded INDIREA cross-Europe training programme from which many joint publications emerged with colleagues in Germany, Spain, UK and Denmark. He has worked and published in Italy as a Fellow. He is fluent in Italian and German and also speaks French.