Melinda Mills is is a Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Digital Pandemic Preparedness. She is also Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Nuffield Professor of Demography.

Her main research areas are combining a social science and genetic approach to the study of behavioural outcomes, with a focus on reproduction (fertility), chronotype, nonstandard, precarious employment and assortative mating. She joined the University of Oxford in 2014 and was previously at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands (2006-2014), Free University Amsterdam (2002-2005) and Bielefeld University, Germany (2000-2002).

She holds a PhD in Demography (Groningen) and a Master and Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (University of Alberta, Canada). As of 2022, she also holds a part-time position at the Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance (University of Groningen) and Department of Genetics (University Medical Centre Groningen).

Since 2022, she has been one of three Special Advisors to European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni and was on the High-level Advisory Group on post-COVID economic and social challenges, European Commissioner for the Economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as a scientific adviser on the UK’s Government Office of Science SAGE (Science Advisory Group for Emergencies), producing rapid evidence during COVID-19; and on the Royal Society SET-C (Science Emergency Technology – COVID-19) advisory group.

Melinda is also a member of the Scientific Committee and Ethics Committee of Our Future Health, the UK’s new 5 million person data collection project and member of the ODISSEI Advisory Board. She was on the Executive Council of the UKRI/ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) and the Supervisory Board (Raad van Toezicht) of the Dutch National Science Council (NWO).