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Professor Ruth Travis

Professor Ruth Travis

Contact information


ruth.travis@ndph.ox.ac.uk


+44 (0)1865 289642


Luiza Scurtu
TravisPA@ndph.ox.ac.uk


Cancer Epidemiology Unit

Ruth Travis

BA, MSc, DPhil

  • Professor of Epidemiology
  • Deputy Director, Cancer Epidemiology Unit
  • Molecular Epidemiology Group Lead
Ruth Travis is Professor of Epidemiology and Deputy Director of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford Population Health. She leads interdisciplinary research programmes aimed at understanding the biological and lifestyle determinants of cancer, with a particular focus on transforming prevention.
Her work brings together large-scale prospective cohorts, international consortia and advanced molecular technologies - including proteomics, metabolomics, genomics and electronic health record linkage - to identify the factors that influence cancer risk, progression and disease heterogeneity. A central theme of her research is the role of circulating biomarkers, such as hormones and blood proteins, in shaping cancer development.
She leads an interdisciplinary Cancer Research UK-funded programme on prostate cancer aetiology, focusing on identifying determinants of aggressive disease and on how to translate population-level discovery and experimental follow-up into strategies for prevention. She chairs the Prostate Cancer Working Group within the Europe-wide EPIC study, coordinates the Endogenous Hormones, Nutritional Biomarkers and Prostate Cancer Collaborative Group, and leads prostate cancer epidemiological research in UK Biobank. She serves on the EPIC and EPIC-Oxford Steering Committees and represents EPIC within the PRACTICAL international genetics consortium. She also leads a pan-cancer programme investigating proteomic and other molecular markers of cancer risk, and research on circadian disruption and shift work in relation to chronic disease in the Million Women Study, EPIC-Oxford and UK Biobank.
Professor Travis is part of the international ATLAS team funded through Cancer Grand Challenges, which brings together immunology, epidemiology, genetics and clinical science to address one of the most fundamental questions in cancer research: how to avoid cancer. The programme investigates immune-mediated mechanisms of tumour resistance, with the aim of redefining cancer prevention by uncovering naturally protective biological pathways.
She studied Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and completed a DPhil in Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. She joined the Cancer Epidemiology Unit in 2001.
Professor Travis is committed to mentoring early-career researchers and building collaborative research environments capable of addressing major global challenges in cancer prevention.