Professor Bauld returned to the University of Edinburgh in November 2018 (having completed her PhD at Edinburgh in 1997) to take up the Usher Chair, the oldest academic chair in public health in the world. She previously worked at the Universities of Stirling, Bath, Glasgow and Kent. She has combined her academic roles with policy and practice secondments over a number of years. Most recently (since 2021) she serves as the Chief Social Policy Adviser to the Scottish Government. Immediately before that (2014-2021) she was Cancer Research UK's Cancer Prevention Adviser.  She was awarded an OBE in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours. 

Linda conducts behavioural research within public health, with a particular focus on the prevention of non-communicable diseases and how research informs policy. Much of her research has focused on nicotine and tobacco - including conducting the first study of the UK's stop smoking services from 1999 and more recently prospective studies and randomised controlled trials examining the effectiveness of financial incentives, e-cigarettes, pharmacotherapy and behavioural support for smoking cessation. She has also conducted studies on policies and interventions to address drug and alcohol use, overweight and obesity and worked with a range of colleagues to better understand and address health inequalities and the wider determinants of health. 

She is currently Principal Investigator for two research consortia - SPECTRUM - focusing on the Commercial Determiants of Health, and Behavioural Research UK (BR-UK) which serves as a leadership hub for behavioural research in the UK across topics and disciplines. Between 2018 and 2021 led a Global Challenges Research Fund consortium (TCCP) to build research capacity in tobacco control in seven countries in Africa and South Asia. 

In her Scottish Government role she serves as senior responsible officer for Place and Wellbeing and works across policy areas to improve the use of data and research within government. She is based in DG Communities, a part of government that has responsibility for policy relating to housing, local government, social security, equalities and human rights and child poverty, among other topics. 

What do I do?

I'm a behavioural researcher working primarily in public health, with a particular interest in the prevention of chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes. I and my team conduct studies on behavioural, pharmacological and community-based interventions to improve health, the environment and other societal and economic priorities. We also evaluate public health policies and examine how services can be improved for patients and the public. We collect and analyse a range of data to help deliver solutions for health improvement. I've served in a number of advisory roles for national governments and international intergovernmental organisations, and worked with the media to improve science communication on public health and social policy issues. 

What is the real world applicability of my research?

I can help translate evidence from observational studies, experiments and randomised controlled trials to improve systems and services for populations in the UK and internationally.

How could this apply to commercial stakeholders?

I can help inform efforts for health improvement in the workplace, improve how data is collected and used and connect commercial stakeholders with researchers and third sector organisations working in health improvement and public health. 

Linda is co-Director (with Professor David Weller) of the Centre for Population Health (CPHS), one of four Centres in the Usher Institute. 

Linda chairs, or is a member of, a number of policy and research funding committees in Europe, Canada and the UK. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Social Sciences and the UK Faculty of Public Health. She is a Board member of some of these (the RCPE, Faculty of Public Health and the Academy of Social Sciences) and is also a Trustee and Vice Chair of the Board of Diabetes UK. 

She is a founding member of Cancer Prevention Europe, established by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and is a member of IARC's working groups on the European Cancer Code. She is also involved in EU funded grants.

In Canada she is a member of the International Advisory Board for the Canadian Institute for Health Research's Institute of Population and Public Health. 

Professor Bauld has an interest in science communication and has considerable experience of working with the media, including communicating results of the studies she is involved in, during her time at CRUK as a media spokesperson on cancer prevention, and subsequently during the Covid-19 pandemic.