M.C. (Melinda) Mills, Prof

Melinda C. Mills is Professor of Data Science and Public Health Policy at the Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance and the Department of Genetics, UMCG. She is also a Professor at the University of Oxford and Nuffield College and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science. Mills is also an Special Advisor to the European Commissioner of the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni. She obtained her PhD in Demography (2000) at the Population Research Centre, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen.

Her research interests include demographics, labour market, fertility, intergenerational transmission, genetics and biostatistics. She uses multiple types of high-dimensional data in her work including administrative, social media, biomarkers, genetics, wearables, surveys, mobility, mobile phone and consumer data. She has published over 150 articles across multiple disciplines, including in Nature Human Behaviour (e.g., 2017 , 2020 ; 2021; 2023 ), Lancet Public Health , PNAS (e.g., 2020 , 2022 ), Nature Genetics (e.g., 2016 , 2020 , 2022 ), International Journal of Epidemiology , Science (e.g., 2021 ; 2019 ) and Social Science and Medicine (e.g., 2016 ). She has also written multiple books, including two applied statistical textbooks on survival analysis in R (2010) and applied statistical genetic data analysis (2020).  

Mills has been awarded around €20 Million in research grants and is Founder of the business Data2ThePeople. She currently holds an ERC Advanced Grant (CHRONO) and ERC Proof of Concept Grant (DNA4Science) and previously held an ERC Consolidator Grant (SOCIOGENOME) and VIDI mid-career grant from NWO. She is also a CO-I of the Horizon project MapIneq, EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Training Network European Social Science Genetics Network (ESSGN) and UKRI Connecting Generations Centre.

In 2018 Mills received a Royal Medal as Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) and was elected as Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). In 2020 she received the Clifford C. Clogg Award for Mid-Career Achievement, Population Association of America and in 2022, the Trailblazer Award from the European Association of Population Studies for outstanding achievements in methods of demographic analysis, mathematical and biodemography. In 2021 she received the O²RB Excellence in Impact Award for ‘Data-driven policy interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Mills sits on the Scientific Committee and Ethics Committee of Our Future Health, the UK’s new 5 million person data collection project. She is a member of the ODISSEI Advisory Board, was a member of NWO’s Non-Executive Supervisory Board (Raad van Toezicht), (2018-2022), Executive Council ESRC, UKRI (2017-2022) and Member of the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) Digital Research Advisory Group (2018-2020.) During COVID, she served as a Scientific Adviser on the UK’s Government Office of Science SAGE (SAGE (Science Advisory Group for Emergencies).