Sarah Harper

Sarah Harper is a distinguished gerontologist and population studies expert, serving as the Clore Professor of Gerontology and Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. After a distinguished career as a News and Current Affairs Reporter and Producer for the BBC from 1985 to 1990, Sarah Harper transitioned to academia, holding a lectureship at the University of London and a professorship at the University of Chicago in the late 1980s. In 1997, Harper founded the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing with significant funding from the US National Institutes of Health. She assumed its Directorship in 2001, having also secured funding for the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in the late 1990s.

She is currently the Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, a Fellow at University College, and the founding editor of the Journal of Population Ageing. Harper’s influential works include ‘Families in Ageing Societies’ (Oxford University Press 2004) and ‘Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and Opportunities’ (2006). Her international expertise was recognized with the University of Malaya Chair in Old Age (2008) and the International Chair in Old Age Financial Security (2009-2010). She received the Royal Society for Public Health Arts and Health Research Award in 2011 and delivered the Oxford London Public Lecture ’21st Century: Last Century of Youth?’ in 2012.

She is co-author of the ‘International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy’ (Elgar 2014, revised 2024) and is preparing for the forthcoming release of her book, ‘Ageing Societies: risk and resilience’ by Routledge. Harper regularly presents at prestigious events including World Economic Forums and Nobel Prize Dialogues across various global cities.