Professor Dag Aarsland

Professor Dag Aarsland joined the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience in January 2016, from Karolinska Institutet where he has been professor of clinical dementia research since 2011.

Dag is renowned throughout the world in the field of Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson’s disease but has made contributions across the spectrum of old age psychiatry.

Professor Tony David, Vice-Dean Academic Psychiatry said:  ‘Professor Aarsland is one of the most outstanding researchers in old age psychiatry and we are delighted that he will be joining us. He will bring with him a network of international collaborators and already has well established links with researchers here notably Clive Ballard and Ray Chaudhuri.Dag has worked in all aspects of old age psychiatry from basic science to applied health research. He is a natural team player and team-builder and will be a huge asset to the IoPPN and King’s College.

As well as heading the department, Prof Aarsland will contribute to new initiatives including dementia research in our forthcoming bid to renew the Biomedical Research Centre. He will also carry out some clinical work within South London & Maudsley NHS Trust and will help in training the next cohort of old age psychiatrists. If he has any time left over, perhaps he will help us to learn how to chop wood and solve complex crime mysteries.

Dag Aarsland gained his degree in medicine in 1988 from the University of Oslo. At the same time as he was working as a clinician at Stavanger University Hospital he started to conduct research, gaining his PhD in 1996 with a thesis on language disorders among patients with Alzheimer's disease. In 1998 he became a specialist in psychiatry. 

From 2000 to 2002 he was a senior lecturer in geriatric psychiatry at the University of Bergen. He then became an adjunct professor, then professor of geriatric medicine at Bergen from 2006-2009. Between 2007 and 2009 he was a visiting professor at King's College in London, where he has held an honorary professorship since 2009. In 2009 Dag Aarsland became a professor of geriatric psychiatry at the University of Oslo. He is also a director of research at the University of Stavanger's Centre for Age-Related Medicine. 

Dag Aarsland was, for several years, director of the Norwegian Neuropsychiatric Association. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes, most recently in 2011 when he was awarded the Western Norway Regional Health Authority's Research Prize.