Simone Reppermund

Associate Professor Simone Reppermund is a UNSW Scientia Associate Professor in the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is affiliated with the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) and the School of Psychiatry. Her research focuses on social determinants of health in ageing, dementia risk factors, cognitive impairment, and functional decline in older adults. She holds roles as Postgraduate Research Coordinator for Psychiatry and Mental Health and serves on the Faculty of Medicine and Health Higher Degree Committee.

Education: PhD in Psychology from Ludwig Maximilian University Munich. Prior to relocating to Australia in 2008, she conducted research at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. Her work integrates large-scale datasets, diagnostic tool development, and analysis of late-life depression, self-harm, and cognitive decline. With >120 peer-reviewed publications and 6,900+ citations, her research emphasizes improving mental and physical health outcomes for older adults with cognitive disorders.

Research Interests:

• Cognitive impairment and dementia mechanisms
• Complex everyday activities in aging
• Late-life depression and self-harm
• Social determinants of health equity
• Functional assessment methodologies

Publications Trends: Recent work emphasizes dementia risk factors, late-life mental health correlates, and translational research linking cognitive decline to clinical outcomes. Key themes include epidemiological studies on depression-dementia interactions and innovative assessment tools for functional cognition.

Labs/Teams: Lead researcher in CHeBA's geriatric mental health initiatives and collaborates internationally through consortia like AGEDEP (Geriatric Depression Network). Active in multidisciplinary teams analyzing health service utilization patterns for vulnerable elderly populations.