Biography

Linda K. McEvoy, PhD, is a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) and professor emerita at the University of California (UC) San Diego. Dr. McEvoy uses epidemiological approaches to improve the understanding of cognitive and brain changes in typical aging and in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Her mission is to better understand the factors that may affect cognitive and brain health in aging, with the goal of informing strategies to maintain cognitive health and reduce dementia risk. These factors include genetic, health, behavioral, environmental, and psychosocial exposures across the life course.

Dr. McEvoy joined KPWHRI in 2023 to take over leadership of the ground-breaking Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) Study following the retirement of the study’s founder, Dr. Eric Larson. ACT is a large, longitudinal study of members of Kaiser Permanente Washington that began in1994 and has created a rich resource for the aging research community to examine factors that affect cognitive and brain health in aging.

In addition to her work on the ACT Study, Dr. McEvoy also performs research using data from the Women’s Health initiative, examining blood-based biomarkers of dementia risk, including epigenetic and proteomic measures.

Dr. McEvoy enjoys mentoring students, fellows, and junior faculty. At UC San Diego, she had leadership roles on several aging and Alzheimer’s disease training programs funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she taught courses in grant writing to junior faculty. She enjoys sharing her knowledge on the characteristics of successful grant applications, which she has accumulated through service on several NIH study sections.