Brief Biography

Ian Deary is Professor of Differential Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He is also the Director of The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (funded also by BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, and MRC). He graduated in Psychology and Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and studied there for his PhD. He practised psychiatry in London and Edinburgh before moving to academic psychology. His principal research interests are: human mental abilities, especially the origins of cognitive differences, the effects of ageing and medical conditions on mental skills, the impact of cognitive differences on people's lives; and human persoanlity differences.

He has published over 500 refereed journal articles, four authored books and three edited books. His 'h index' in ISI's Web of Science is 56. He leads a research team studying cognitive ageing by following up the people who took part in the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947. Other members of his research team are currently investigating: the influence of childhood and early adult IQ on health in adulthood and survival to old age (cognitive epidemiology); and effects of diseases on cognitive abilities. His research includes the application of molecular genetic and brain imaging techniques to the understanding of cognitive ability differences and cognitive ageing.

His research on the origins of mental ability differences was integrated in his book Looking Down on Human Intelligence: From Psychometrics to the Brain (Oxford University Press, 2000). This won the British Psychological Society’s Book Award in 2002. He followed this up with Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001) which introduced the main issues in psychometric intelligence for junior students and lay people. His and his collaborators' first ten years of follow-up studies of the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947 is summarised in the book: A Lifetime of Intelligence (American Psychological Association, 2009; with co-authors Lawrence Whalley and John Starr).

Ian Deary also conducts research and writes about personality traits, including aspects of their structure and origins and their importance for health. He is co-author of the book Personality Traits (Cambridge University Press, 2009; with co-authors Gerry Matthews and Martha Whiteman).

In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. During 1999-2001 he was the elected President of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the British Academy. In 2003 he received the first of the annual Chancellor’s Awards of the University of Edinburgh which “recognise excellence in vital academic areas such as teaching and research and were awarded on the basis of innovation, relevance, creativity and personal dedication”. From Jan 2003 to Dec 2007 he held a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award for his work on human cognitive ageing. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In 2009 he won the Alumni Achievement Award from Glasgow Caledonian University. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. In 2010 he received the award as the Distinguished European Persoanlity Psychologist from the European Association of Personality Psychology.

A photograph of Ian Deary is available here.