UK DRI & Race Against Dementia announce first AI Innovation Fellow

In 2025, the UK DRI partnered with Race Against Dementia to launch a Fellowship Scheme supporting the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, to increase understanding of dementia and related conditions. Following a highly competitive process and international expert review, we are delighted to announce that Dr Alex Smith (UK DRI at Imperial) has been awarded the first RAD-UK DRI Fellowship. 

During his fellowship, Alex will utilise AI to explore fully anonymised medical records from over 500,000 people with dementia across the UK to uncover healthcare patterns otherwise impossible to detect, which will then improve our understanding of the different causes of dementia and how it develops.

Alex will also build tools for predicting future medical events and combine them with computer simulations to explore possible effects of medical intervention. In the future, Alex hopes that these tools will give patients, families, and clinicians a shared insight into possible treatment impacts before they make decisions; enabling more personalised and patient-centred care.

Lydia Beaton, CEO Race Against Dementia, said:

“Alex’s move from mathematics into dementia research captures the essence of this partnership - to disrupt thinking and challenge how research is done. Through combining life sciences, engineering, data science and clinical expertise, we are advancing ways to diagnose, study and treat dementia. The next round of awards will further scale this approach.”

Prof Siddharthan Chandran, UK DRI Director, said: 

"This fellowship marks a significant step in applying AI to one of medicine's greatest challenges. Dr Alex Smith will use real-world health data at a scale that simply wasn't possible a decade ago, with the goal of making dementia treatment and care more personalised and equitable. I would like to congratulate Alex on his success and warmly welcome him into the programme.

With the next round of the programme opening shortly, we are excited to see who steps forward next. This is a remarkable opportunity, and we hope to see the strongest possible field.”

The second round of the RAD-UK DRI Fellowship is now open and will close on will open on 21 October 2026. A webinar will be held on 21 July at 2pm, no registration needed.

More information & guidance for applicants

Watch the webinar

About the Fellowship scheme

The UK DRI is a mission led institute, building a federated intelligence system, uniting 78 research groups into an AI-enabled single learning system, to accelerate tomorrow's diagnostics and therapies into real impact for dementia patients.

The Fellowship scheme aims to support the next generation of dementia researchers to drive pioneering, high-impact research, build global collaborations, and transform the lives of those affected by neurodegenerative diseases, using the latest advancements in AI and machine learning technology.

Applicants from a mathematics, data science, or engineering background, or who have spent time in industry, are particularly encouraged to apply.

Funding for up to £500k is available for salary and project costs, distributed over four or five years. Successful awardees will benefit from a comprehensive training package to build leadership, communication, resilience and career development skills, including access to EMBO’s prestigious Lab Leadership course.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to reach out to a Sponsor/s as soon as possible. A list of Group Leaders happy to be contacted to discuss proposals with applicants is listed below. 

This list is not exhaustive and a full list of UK DRI Group Leaders is available here: https://www.ukdri.ac.uk/people/group-leaders 

For more information on the scheme, click below.

Information & guidance for applicants