Linda K. McEvoy, PhD
“My research goals are to further our understanding of the wide variety of factors that influence cognitive and brain health in aging, to inform strategies to reduce risk of dementia.”
Linda K. McEvoy, PhD
Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Biography
Linda K. McEvoy, PhD, is a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) and professor emerita at the University of California (UC) San Diego. Dr. McEvoy uses epidemiological approaches to improve the understanding of cognitive and brain changes in typical aging and in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Her mission is to better understand the factors that may affect cognitive and brain health in aging, with the goal of informing strategies to maintain cognitive health and reduce dementia risk. These factors include genetic, health, behavioral, environmental, and psychosocial exposures across the life course.
Dr. McEvoy joined KPWHRI in 2023 to take over leadership of the ground-breaking Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) Study following the retirement of the study’s founder, Dr. Eric Larson. ACT is a large, longitudinal study of members of Kaiser Permanente Washington that began in1994 and has created a rich resource for the aging research community to examine factors that affect cognitive and brain health in aging.
In addition to her work on the ACT Study, Dr. McEvoy also performs research using data from the Women’s Health initiative, examining blood-based biomarkers of dementia risk, including epigenetic and proteomic measures.
Dr. McEvoy enjoys mentoring students, fellows, and junior faculty. At UC San Diego, she had leadership roles on several aging and Alzheimer’s disease training programs funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she taught courses in grant writing to junior faculty. She enjoys sharing her knowledge on the characteristics of successful grant applications, which she has accumulated through service on several NIH study sections.
Research interests and experience
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Aging & Geriatrics
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Dementia
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Genetic Risk Factors of Alzheimer’s Disease
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Neuroimaging Data
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Social Determinants of Health
Recent Publications
Hayes-Larson E, Andrews RM, Kezios KL, Bercu A, Rouanet A, Helmer C, Crane PK, Gibbons LE, Klinedinst BS, McEvoy LK, Nichols E, Weuve J, Rajan KB, Hwang PH, Mez J, Farina M, Shaw C, Sims KD, Therneau T, Petersen RC, Bouteloup V, Gross AL, Albert M, Morris JC, Masters CL, Resnick SM, Maruff P, Manly JJ, Turney IC, Vonk JMJ, Avila-Rieger J, Weigand A, Chen R, Wang J, Proust-Lima C, Mayeda ER Approaches to timescale choice in cognitive aging research and potential implications for estimated exposure effects: coordinated analyses in ten cohorts of older adults 2025 Jul;36(4):560-571. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001859. Epub 2025-03-31. PubMed
Posis AIB, Elman JA, Alcaraz JE, Parada H, Shadyab AH, Fennema-Notestine C, Hagler DJ, Lyons MJ, Panizzon MS, Reynolds CA, Franz CE, Kremen WS, McEvoy LK Associations of history of traumatic brain injury with markers of brain health among older men in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging 2025 Jun 21;47:103831 doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2025.103831. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2025.103831. Epub 2025-06-21. PubMed
Reas ET, Parada H, Bergstrom J, McEvoy LK Modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults differ by sex and APOE4 2025 Apr 7;80(5). doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbaf005. Epub 2025-01-17. PubMed
Lin SJ, Gillespie NA, Notestine R, Gamst AC, Chen AM, McEvoy LK, Panizzon MS, Elman JA, Glatt SJ, Hagler DJ, Neale MC, Franz CE, Kremen WS, Fennema-Notestine C The genetic and environmental etiology of novel frequency-driven regional parcellations of abnormal white matter 2025 Jan;198(1):e33004. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.33004. Epub 2024-08-16. PubMed
Gatto NM, Renz A, Tom SE, Lyons M, Macuiba JA, Dodd TS, Lind BK, Gray SL, Meyers K, Larson EB, Nelson JC, McEvoy LK, Sankaran S, Key D, Litondo JA, Crane PK The Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) Medical Records Abstraction Project: A Resource for Research on Biological, Psychosocial and Behavioral Factors on the Aging Brain and Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias 2024 Oct 28;14(11). doi: 10.3390/brainsci14111075. Epub 2024-10-28. PubMed
Research
Blood test predicts dementia in women years before symptoms begin
Study finds biomarker p-tau217 strongly linked to future dementia risk.
Research
Autopsy study links BP drugs to possible brain benefits
Research supports theory that some blood pressure medications may provide extra protection against dementia.
Research
Can preventing hearing loss reduce dementia risk?
New research from Linda McEvoy, PhD, helps explain how hearing loss affects the brain.
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