Professor Ralph Martins


Professor Ralph Martins
Chair in Ageing and Alzheimer’s, Edith Cowan University

Professor Ralph Martins is well known, and highly respected internationally as a prominent researcher in Ageing and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). His insight into this devastating disease has led to a number of ground breaking discoveries. In 2004 he was appointed by Edith Cowan University (ECU) to the Inaugural Chair in Ageing and Alzheimer’s.  Through his leadership and dedication, Martins has built a substantial, world-class research and clinical capacity in Western Australia with active links to international peers at the forefront of the battle against Alzheimer’s disease.  Recognising collaboration and teamwork on a global scale as key to solving this enormous scientific and medical challenge in Alzheimer’s disease, he has led innumerable global collaborations facilitating international knowledge transfer. To foster research collaborations, he has been holding a joint academic appointment between Edith Cowan University and Macquarie University since April 2016.

Recognising his outstanding research achievements, he was awarded a number of very prestigious accolades, including: the Melvin Jones Award from Lions Club International Foundation USA in 2010 (the highest Award that Lions can bestow recognising outstanding service to the community and one of only two recipients of this award by the Club in the last 25 years), Western Australian of the Year 2010, Western Australian Citizen of the Year 2011, Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Club 2011, Member of the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (KSJ) 2013 and Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the General Division in 2013. He is a Director on the Canadian based, International Federation on Ageing (IFA). an influential and prominent NGO working closely with the United Nations and the World Health Organization; Martins is the only researcher representing the Australian research community and he is in the process of organizing an IFA led international conference exploring multimodal intervention programs for the prevention of Dementia.