Professor Wilby Williamson is a Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine and Professor of Physiology at Trinity College Dublin. He is recognised internationally for his research in cardiovascular prevention, brain health, and exercise medicine.

He trained at leading institutions including Nottingham, Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Trinity College Dublin, UCSF, McGill, and the University of Cape Town, and was awarded a DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine from the University of Oxford. He has secured competitive research funding from the EU Horizon programme, the British Heart Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust, and is a Senior Atlantic Fellow with the Global Brain Health Institute.

Professor Williamson’s research integrates mechanistic physiology, advanced imaging, and clinical trials with epidemiology and health services research to address cardiovascular and brain health across the life course. His work includes the prevention of anxiety and depression in at-risk young adults, personalised exercise prescription in cardiometabolic health and diabetes, and the early detection of cardiovascular risk and cardiac remodelling. With the TILDA study, he has shown how midlife physical function and heart health relate to later-life cognitive decline, while his work in younger adults has demonstrated that modifiable risk factors influence adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular remodelling long before clinical disease emerges. This research has identified mechanisms linking cardiac function, brain structure, and autonomic regulation, and is beginning to show how early-life exposures shape or limit the plasticity of these systems.

Alongside his academic and clinical leadership, he is an advocate for integrative and preventive approaches to medicine, having completed fellowship training at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine in Arizona. His career is defined by advancing evidence-based innovation in exercise and preventive medicine, with a focus on promoting healthspan and human-centred care planning.