Race Against Dementia welcomes Dr Sivaniya Subramaniapillai, our new Swiss Fellow funded in partnership with the Synapsis Foundation – a scientist determined to build a more inclusive future for dementia research.
Dementia cases are expected to exceed 150 million by 2050, yet the evidence guiding today’s research is drawn from a narrow slice of the global population. Women – who are twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s – remain underrepresented. People from low‑income backgrounds face triple the risk of early‑onset dementia, yet their data is rarely included. And vast regions across Africa, Asia and Latin America are still missing from the datasets that shape scientific understanding.
Dr Sivaniya Subramaniapillai is here to change that.
Based at the University of Lausanne, Sivaniya will lead Diverse Brains: A Global, Inclusive Approach to Health Equity in Brain Aging. This ambitious project will analyse brain imaging and health data from more than 25,000 people across 30 countries – the first time datasets of this scale and diversity have been brought together in dementia research.
Using advanced machine learning, Sivaniya will study how sex, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status intersect to influence brain health. She will also examine how social factors such as education and income interact with biological risks like genetics and heart health. The goal is simple but transformative: to identify who is most at risk, and to build prevention strategies that work for everyone, not just the few historically represented in research.
Later in her Fellowship, Sivaniya will establish an independent lab and launch the Diverse Brains Consortium, a global platform for data sharing and inclusive science. She will also pilot a portable MRI scanner in under‑resourced London communities – a step that could open the door to global use in low‑resource settings.
Sivaniya brings ambition, clarity and a drive to disrupt conventional approaches. Her Fellowship will accelerate her path and strengthen her leadership as she pushes dementia research into new territory.