About me
Alicja Wolk is Professor of Nutritional Epidemiology at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research is focused on modifiable lifestyle factors, mainly diet and physical activity, related to mortality, chronic diseases (cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, etc) and healthy ageing, and also genetic susceptibility for cancer development. More recently she extended her research to include also environmental impact of diet on planetary health. AW has established and been developing two population-based prospective longitudinal cohorts – the Cohort of Swedish Men and the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Her research is based on these cohorts that include over 100,000 participants and a biobank that stores DNA from 50,000 participants (that enables studies of genes and gene-diet/drugs/environment interactions) and bio-samples (blood, urine, adipose tissue, feces) from 14,000 participants (that enables discoveries of biomarkers of early diagnosis). The cohorts, in which extensive, and repeated information about diet and lifestyle is collected, are annually followed-up for 30 years by linkage to high quality national health registers. The cohorts and the related biobank are from 2018 transformed into national research infrastructure SIMPLER (Swedish Infrastructure for Medical Population-based Life-course and Environmental Research, https://www.simpler4health.se).
AW has published over 800 scientific papers cited over 165,000 times (Google Scholar H-index=162) in many prestigious journals and she is a member of the international “AcademiaNet - Outstanding Female Academics” (nominated by the Swedish Research Council). She is currently member of Prevention & Population Research Committee of Cancer Research, UK. In ranking of Best Medicine Scientists in Sweden announced by Research.com in the fall of 2022 (based on data collected from Microsoft Academic Graph on December 6th, 2021) Alicja Wolk has been ranked as No 8, and among female researchers No1.
Education
- Visiting scholar, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston (USA), 1995-1997
- Post-doc/ guest researcher, Karolinska Institutet, 1987
- Dr Med Sci/PhD in Human Nutrition/Clinical Epidemiology, Warsaw, Poland, 1987
- MSc in Human Nutrition (5-y program, incl. toxicology and biochemistry), Warsaw University, Poland, 1974
Academic honours, awards and prizes
- Member of AcademiaNet- Outstanding Female Academics (nominated by the Swedish Research Council), 2014
- Distinguished Professor Award at Karolinska Institutet, 2010
- Strategic Research Award, Karolinska Institutet, 2007-2012
- Senior Cancer Investigator Award, the Swedish Cancer Foundation, 1999-2005
- Cancer Investigator Award, the Swedish Cancer Foundation, 1993-1999
- Junior Cancer Investigator Award (2-y Expert Position), the Swedish Cancer Foundation, 1991-1992