Stina Saunders

Stina Saunders is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Medical Informatics within the Usher Institute, School of Population Health Sciences, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Her work focuses on Alzheimer's disease and dementia prevention, particularly in the areas of risk disclosure and patient-centered outcomes.

Her educational background includes a PhD in Clinical Brain Sciences from the University of Edinburgh (awarded December 2022), an MRes and MA in Clinical Psychology from the University of Tartu, Estonia, and a BA in Literature (major) and Psychology (minor).

Dr. Saunders' research centers on pre-dementia stages of Alzheimer's disease, examining how diagnostic test disclosures impact individuals with mild cognitive impairment. She develops patient-centered tools like the electronic Person-Specific Outcome Measure (ePSOM) and applies natural language processing for cognitive decline detection. Her work integrates clinical psychology with medical informatics to improve patient engagement in dementia research.

Analysis of her publications reveals consistent focus on qualitative studies of patient perspectives in clinical trials, with recent work incorporating speech analysis and mobile technologies for early Alzheimer's detection. This trajectory shows increasing technical sophistication while maintaining patient-centered outcomes as the core priority.

Dr. Saunders secured dual funding for the ePSOM app development through UK-based charities and the R S Macdonald Charitable Trust. She actively supervises PhD students and collaborates with major international consortia including the European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) project and PREVENT Dementia programme.

She contributes to European Medicines Agency initiatives on patient-reported outcomes and leads participant engagement panels, ensuring research aligns with patient priorities throughout the dementia care continuum.