Sanjula Dhillon Singh, MD, PhD, MSc Global Health Science and Epidemiology (Oxon)

Sanjula Dhillon Singh, MD, PhD, MSc (Oxon)
Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Principal Investigator at Brain Care Labs, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dr. Sanjula Dhillon Singh is a physician-scientist and Oxford-trained epidemiologist whose work bridges clinical medicine, epidemiology, behavioral science, and global health innovation. Trained in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Dr. Singh brings a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to the prevention of age-related brain diseases, focusing on dementia, stroke, and late-life depression.

She earned her PhD in Neurosurgery from the University Medical Center Utrecht, co-supervised by leading faculty from University Medical Center Utrecht (Prof. Gabriel Rinkel) and Harvard Medical School (Prof. Joshua Goldstein) and completed an MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford as a Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Scholar. Her doctoral research led to paradigm-shifting insights into the treatment of cerebellar intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), the deadliest subtype of stroke, contributing to the revisions of the 2022 AHA/ASA treatment guidelines.

At Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Singh became a faculty member at only 28 years old. She is the founder of the Singh Lab within the Brain Care Labs, where she and her team are developing and testing scalable, evidence-based interventions to prevent stroke, dementia, and late-life depression. Her work focuses on shared modifiable risk factor control and health equity, particularly for underrepresented populations around the globe.

Dr. Singh led the scientific validation of the Brain Care Score (BCS)—an innovative tool co-designed with patients and clinicians to help individuals assess and improve their brain health. Her first-author research has been featured by the New York Times (>1 million views in the first week), CNN (twice), front page of the Boston Globe, NPR, CBS, amongst other international media. She also led a global Delphi consensus process with 40 international experts to update the BCS based on emerging scientific evidence.

As the senior author on a landmark systematic review published in Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Dr. Singh led a systematic review to identify shared modifiable risk factors for the incidence of stroke, dementia, and late-life depression. Subsequently, her team developed the first disability-adjusted life year (DALY)-weighted prioritization of these factors for a composite outcome of the incidence of these three age-related brain diseases.This paper reframed the landscape of brain disease prevention by offering a unified framework for public health and clinical interventions. This paper attention from scientific colleagues around the world, including an invited editorial by the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry and the highlight of Nature’s daily briefing. Dr. Singh has been interviewed by major international media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN Health, Harvard Gazette, Fox News, and Everyday Health, underscoring its impact on advancing the public awareness of the importance of modifiable risk factor control for the shared prevention of stroke, dementia, and depression.

Dr. Singh serves as the Site Principal Investigator at MGH for two studies focusing on secondary prevention in stroke survivors through blood pressure control:

• REACH-ICH (NIH R01NS093870): Investigating the biological and social determinants of poor outcomes in hemorrhagic stroke survivors from historically marginalized communities.
• Bugher Foundation Center for Excellence in Brain Health (AHA) – Clinical Project: Studying biological and social determinants of early outcomes in stroke survivors.

She is also the recipient of the Heitman Foundation Young Investigator Award 2024 ($150,000 over 2 years), supporting the development of a novel intervention to improve blood pressure medication adherence to lower in risks of a secondary stroke, dementia, or depression in U.S. stroke survivors.

An internationally recognized speaker and author of more than 25 peer-reviewed papers—including in Stroke, Neurology, Lancet Neurology, and Frontiers in Neurology—Dr. Singh was recently invited to join the 2025 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Brain Health Science Task Force. She mentors PhD candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and students at all levels, and leads global collaborations in brain health research and innovation.

Dr. Singh’s long-term vision is to transform the global landscape of brain disease prevention through the development and testing of effective and scalable tools grounded in behavioral science.

Join Our Team
If you are interested in joining the Singh Lab at Brain Care Labs at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School—where we focus on advancing brain health through research, innovation, and equity—please reach out to Dr. Singh’s Senior Administrative Manager at ckourkoulis@mgb.org.