Professor Anna Hansell

Professor Hansell is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) and an internationally recognised environmental epidemiologist with more than 20 years of experience investigating how environmental exposures affect human health. Her research focuses on the health impacts of air pollution and other environmental hazards, examining effects across the life course from pregnancy and early childhood through to older age, with a particular emphasis on respiratory and cardiovascular health.

Professor Hansell is Director of the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester, Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Chemical Threats and Hazards, and lead for the Environment Theme within the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), the first dedicated environment theme to be established within a BRC. Through these roles, she brings together expertise from across environmental science, public health and clinical research to better understand and reduce the health impacts of environmental exposures. 

Her work spans air pollution, chemical and metal exposures, and bioaerosols, and has contributed to national and international evidence informing environmental health policy and practice. She has led and collaborated on major population-based studies investigating the links between environmental exposures, lung function, chronic respiratory disease and wider health outcomes, helping to shape understanding of how environmental risks influence health across populations.