Professor Sarah Harper is a leading expert on global population change and ageing. She is the Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and the Founding Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. She has served in many prominent advisory and leadership positions in governmental, corporate and charitable organisations, including as Director of the Royal Institution, and as Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.
Harper’s academic background is in anthropology and population studies, and her work has predominantly focused on migration and demographic change. She has recently conducted research into women’s empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa, increasing life expectancy and falling fertility across Africa and Asia, and late life female health. She has lectured at the University of London and the University of Chicago, and is now based at Oxford, where she is a Fellow at University College in addition to directing the Institute of Population Ageing. She has addressed academic conferences worldwide, presented TEDx talks, spoken to World Economic Forums and presented work at two Nobel Prize Dialogues.
Harper has served the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions, the Office of the Prime Minister, and the Department of Children, Schools and Families, and has advised the governments of Malaysia and Singapore as well as the European Commission. She has served on advisory boards for the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Natural England, Population Europe, and the World Demographic Association. She chaired HSBC’s Global Ageing Forum, and has served as a trustee of Club Vita and the Third Age Employment Network. Her research has been recognised with a Royal Society for Public Health Arts and Health Research Award, and she has been appointed a CBE for services to demography.
